Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe, born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations. He was born in the then Danish peninsula of Scania. Well known in his lifetime as an astronomer, astrologer and alchemist, he has been described as "the first competent mind in modern astronomy to feel ardently the passion for exact empirical facts." His observations were some five times more accurate than the best available observations at the time...
NationalityDanish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth14 December 1546
CountryDenmark
An astronomer must be cosmopolitan, because ignorant statesmen cannot be expected to value their services
When I had satisfied myself that no star of that kind had ever shone before, I was led into such perplexity by the unbelievability of the thing that I began to doubt the faith of my own eyes.
Now it is quite clear to me that there are no solid spheres in the heavens, and those that have been devised by the authors to save the appearances, exist only in the imagination.
It was not just the Church that resisted the heliocentrism of Copernicus.
From his observations, he concluded that it [Tycho's supernova] was not some kind of comet or a fiery meteor, whether these be generated beneath the Moon or above the Moon, but that it is a star shining in the firmament itself - one that has never previously been seen before our time, in any age since the beginning of the world.
Behold, directly overhead, a certain strange star was suddenly seen . . . Amazed, and as if astonished and stupified, I stood still
There is something eccentric in the orbit of Mars.
The body of the Earth, large, sluggish and inapt for motion, is not to be disturbed by movement (especially three movements), any more than the Aetherial Lights [stars] are to be shifted, so that such ideas are opposed both to physical principles and to the authority of the Holy Writ which many time: confirms the stability of the Earth (as we shall discuss more fully elsewhere).
When, according to habit, I was contemplating the stars in a clear sky, I noticed a new and unusual star, surpassing the other stars in brilliancy . . . . There had never before been any star in that place in the sky.
The star [Tycho's supernova] was at first like Venus and Jupiter, giving pleasing effects; but as it then became like Mars, there will next come a period of wars, seditions, captivity and death of princes, and destruction of cities, together with dryness and fiery meteors in the air, pestilence, and venomous snakes. Lastly, the star became like Saturn, and there will finally come a time of want, death, imprisonment and all sorts of sad things.
I conclude, therefore, that this star is not some kind of comet or a fiery meteor... but that it is a star shining in the firmament itself one that has never previously been seen before our time, in any age since the beginning of the world.