mical observer. His observations of planetary motions were very precise and were, after his death (he refused to share them freely while alive), the data upon which the great theoretician Johannes Kepler based his laws of planetary motion. KeplerΓÇÖs laws in turn played an important part in Isaac NewtonΓÇÖs derivation of the laws of motion, which are the basis of modern physics and astronomy. BraheΓÇÖs careful observations and records of the supernova of 1572 have been of great use to modern astronomers. Among other things, he pinpointed the supernovaΓÇÖs location. The notes he took on the waxing and waning of the supernovaΓÇÖs brightness over time marked the first time the so-called light curve (a technique still used routinely to study
