How Does The Moon Form?

Ptolemy, a Roman astronomer came up with the theory that the universe revolved around Earth and all the creatures inhabiting it (Doc. C). This theory, The Geocentric Universe of Ptolemy, was adjusted by most of the people during The Middle Ages. However, much later on, Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish astronomer, disagreed with Ptolemy’s theory. With his use of math and reason, he came up with a new theory called The Heliocentric Universe of Copernicus (Doc. C). He said that the universe & Earth itself revolves around the sun. The Church denied this theory because they did not want to be proven wrong. If the Church was wrong about this part of the universe, this would then cause man to wonder what else they could be wrong about, or even lied to them about. This new theory taught men to think for themselves and not to rely on the Church for

In concordance with Christian doctrines, this system implies that heaven and the throne of God lie beyond the tenth sphere. On the other hand, during the first half of the 16th century, Polish cleric Copernicus developed an astronomical model which positions the motionless Sun at the center of the universe, with the Earth, the moon, and six other planets revolving at a constant speed around it. He argues that all stars were at rest and that their nightly movements are simply indications of the earth’s rotation. However, members of the Church, especially Protestants, who interpreted the Bible literally, refused to grant Copernicus credit for his theory. Nevertheless, once released among the population, the Copernican theory raised support from various scholars, a few of whom, such as Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo, went on to dedicate their career to solidify its legitimacy. With their use of mathematical reasoning, instead of antic philosophy, the Copernican theory finally became justified among the population. Pertaining to its influence among laypeople, the Copernican theory raised various questions against the

Aristotle’s model by today’s standards can easily be picked apart, but at the time, it was the best explanation that could be made with so little technology and insight. Although his theories have long since been replaced, they created a base for future scientists to work off of and challenge. Over time many great scientists began to question Aristotle’s theories. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), for example, contested the absolute significance of the earth, and he did not agree that it should be viewed as the center of the entire universe (Lizhi & Youquan, 1987). He plotted the earth at the center of the universe and created a heliocentric system just as mathematically complicated as the Ptolemaic system (one that also improved on Aristotle’s), but it explained a number of anomalies, including resolving the issue of retrograde motion (Ede, A. & Cormack, L., 2004). The problem was that Aristotle’s physics of ‘natural motion’ fell apart without the earth in the center of everything.

While the Roman Catholic Church believed that the earth was the center of the universe, Nicolaus Copernicus’s discovered that the Earth actually was one of the planets hat revolved around the sun. “For, in the first place, they are so uncertain about the motion of the sun and moon that they cannot establish and observe a constant length even for the tropical year. (Document 1)” The church belief did not make sense because it was wrong. They were going off wrong information that they could not establish a constant year, which confuses people. Nicolaus said that the earth moved around the sun, which made more sense and

Copernicus published "On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres" in 1543 , sparking off the scientific revolution and a new era of astronomical thought. This theory explains that the sun, not the Earth, is the center of the solar system and planets move in a circular motion around it. This had many social, intellectual and religious made of huis idea. For instance, this theory brought into question the strict reading of the Bible and philosophies of the Catholic Church.

Aristotle’s model of the universe was a geocentric universe. This meant that the Earth was at the centre of the universe and that all stars were on a celestial sphere. A celestial sphere is an imaginary sphere which acts as a dome around the Earth from which you can see the stars and the universe. Although Aristotle’s model was good for its time it could not explain retrograde motion of the planets.

When it comes to theories and law’s concerning the movement of stellar bodies and why the universe is moving the way it is and how it came to be, data is continuously being added and revised. It is through this constant revising of theories and establishing of laws that core ideas are proven, with modern day scientists expanding knowledge for the rest of us. One of the earliest pioneers of spatial theories was the Italian astronomer, Galileo Galilei, who used the theories of those who came before and he learned from to paint a better picture of the way the universe was set. True to form, he dealt with accusations of heresy and resistance to his ideas from others during his life, which today are held as being before his time.

Even though the mathematicians who study the universe were unsure of the revolution period of the sun and moon, furthermore the inaccuracies regarding the length of seasons, Copernicus’ heliocentric model takes steps towards accuracies . A strong example of this attention for accuracy is that, in comparison to Aristotle’s model, Copernicus’ universal model incorporated thirteen more centuries of complied data in order to better represent the universe. It is important to compare the Aristotelian model to the Copernican model because it shows that the scientific field made adaptations to the way that gravity and the centrifugal motion of planets function . From a historical aspect this is important because it shows that regardless of whether or not these ideas were accepted they were still thought up, meaning that the thought processes incorporated modern thought . By examining the spherical interpretation of the universe, Copernicus had to increase its size in order to accommodate for his adaptations of gravitational pull . Copernicus’ theory is that because gravitational pull exists, theoretically if the earth were predominantly water, the earth would retain its

Nicolaus Copernicus was an astronomer. He studied the movements of the planets but as he did what Ptolemy had stated made less and less sense to him. Ptolemy had written that the solar system was geocentric, or in other words that the earth was the center of the universe and that the sun and other planets orbited the earth. This theory was accepted for 1,400 years until around this time. Copernicus said that the solar system was heliocentric, and the sun was the center of the solar system.

The Scientific Revolution is the qualitative jump in sciences in the 17th century. New discoveries in natural science, engineering, geography rejected many traditional ideas and a common picture of the world. Aristotle, Claudius Ptolemy, and Christian Theology represented the universe as geocentric conception where the earth was motionless and in the center of concentric spheres. (479) Such representation was supported till Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) argued Ptolemy's conception and suggested heliocentric understanding. His conception opened the Earth as a planet where the moon took place as Earth's satellite and the sun was the center of planets. Also as Copernicus, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler disagreed with Ptolemy's geocentric system. Based on the Brahe's work, Kepler came to conclusions that each planet moves in an ellipse and were able to calculate relations between planets' size and

The Ptolemaic view of the motions of the stars was earth centric, or geocentric. Ptolemy believed that all the planets revolved around the earth, the earth was the center of the universe. Copernicus on the other hand held the belief that the universe revolved around the sun, or that the universe was heliocentric. Copernicus also only considered there to only be six planets, as he didn’t count the moon like Ptolemy. Kepler held similar beliefs t Copernicus, and believed that the reason why a god-created universe only had six planets instead of seven was based on Plato’s idea of the five Platonic Solids. That just like there are only five forms of matter and five platonic solids, the universe must have been intelligently created in a similar

Gravity keeps us on this planet. If it didn’t then we would float away. But the sun’s gravity pulls us into orbit. 9 planets and dwarf planets go into orbit because of the sun’s gravity but the motion of the Moon is affected by the gravity of the Sun and the Earth. The gravity from the moon pulls the water to make tides rise and fall regularly. When the moon passes over the ocean the sea level swells. When the moon passes over the ocean it causes the swell to move, making the tides move. It doesn’t matter what phase it is it will still always create the tides. (Andrew Rader Studios 2015, 'Motion:

Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer and mathematician who lived between 1671-1630. Kepler was a Copernican and initially believed that planets should follow perfectly circular orbits (“Johan Kepler” 1). During this time period, Ptolemy’s geocentric theory of the solar system was accepted. Ptolemy’s theory stated that Earth is at the center of the universe and stationary; closest to Earth is the Moon, and beyond it, expanding towards the outside, are Mercury, Venus, and the Sun in a straight line, followed by Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the “fixed stars”. The Ptolemaic system explained the numerous observed motions of the planets as having small spherical orbits called epicycles (“Astronomy” 2). Kepler is best known for introducing three

There are multiple theories as to how the Moon was created and formed. The five stated are all created and developed by different scientists. The first theory they developed is the Capture theory, which states that the Moon has formed somewhere else and had been grabbed by Earth’s gravitational pull. Second theory developed is the Fission Theory. It supports the idea that the substance, which formed the Moon, had been put out in the solar system by a fast-spinning Earth. The Co-Formation is the third theory, suggesting that the Moon formed along the Earth 4.5 billion years ago, combing the gas and dust in the same area. Further, into other theories, the Colliding Planetesimals theory supports the clear idea that the Moon condensed from debris when planetesimals (Earth’s building block) crashed into each other. The final theory is the Giant Impact. This theory supports that the Moon's formation formed when combining material that had blasted into space clashed with a new Earth; about 4.4 billion years ago.

According to the common belief during the Middle Ages, the universe was comprised of many nested celestial spheres, or orbs. According to M.S. Mahoney, an astronomical researcher at Princeton University, Johannes Kepler, in his physics research, regarded “the spheres” as the “geometrical spatial regions containing each planetary orbit rather than physical bodies as in preceding Aristotelian celestial physics”. Kepler provided mathematical evidence to this theory, including the fact that the “eccentricity of each planet’s elliptical orbit and its major and minor axes defined the lengths of the radii of the inner and outer limits of its celestial sphere and, therefore, its thickness. The role of these geometrical spheres in Kepler’s Platonist geometrical cosmology was to determine the sizes and ordering of the five Platonic polyhedral within which the spheres were supposedly spatially embedded” (Mahoney). Although each sphere rotated uniformly, the combination of their separate revolutions prompted the discovery of the appearance of the irregularity in the motions of the sun and the plants as astronomers viewed from the Earth. The notion that the planets were celestial three-dimensional spheres rather than concrete two-dimensional objects contributed to the naming of Pythagoras’s theory, known as the Harmony of the Spheres.