The problem of the stability of the solar system has fascinated astronomers and mathematicians since antiquity, when it was observed that among the fixed stars there were ‘wandering stars’ — the planets. Efforts were first focused on finding a regularity in the motion of these wanderers, so their movement among the fixed stars could be predicted. For Hipparchus and Ptolemy the ideal model was a combination of uniform circular motions (‘epicycles’) which were continually adjusted over the centuries to conform to the observed course of the planets. Astronomy had become predictive, even if its models were in continual need of adjustment.
From 1609 to 1618 Kepler fixed the planets' trajectories: having assimilated the lessons of Copernicus, he placed the Sun at the center of the universe and, based on the observations of Tycho Brahe, showed that the planets described ellipses around the Sun. At the end of a revolution, each planet found itself back where it started and so retraced the same...
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Celestial mechanics; Chaotic dynamics in the solar system; Coordinate systems; Earth—Moon system: dynamics; Earth: rotational history; Ephemeris; Lagrange, Louis Joseph; Laplace, Pierre Simon de; Newton, Sir Isaac, and Newton's laws; Obliquity: terrestrial record; Planetary dynamical astronomy
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Laskar, J. (1997). Solar system: Stability . In: Encyclopedia of Planetary Science. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4520-4_382
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