How have the ideas about the structure of the solar system changed since hundreds of years ago?

1 Answer
Jun 1, 2016

There have been many changes to the model of our solar system.

Explanation:

Hundreds of years ago, people thought the Earth was at the center of the universe. Ptolemy came up with a model for this.

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2010/09/13/geocentrism-was-galileo-wrong/

This is the geocentric model.

A few hundred years ago, a greek astronomer came upon the idea of the sun being in the middle. That model was the heliocentric model. Copernicus then thought that this was true and then added the planets in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernican_heliocentrism

Then, Kepler came along and found that the orbits of the planets were not elliptical. This founded our current model of the solar system.

http://www.seasky.org/solar-system/solar-system.html