Tycho Brahe was born the son of a Danish nobleman but was raised from an early age by his childless uncle. Despite the wishes of his uncle, who wanted him to study law, Brahe's interest in astronomy developed when he was a student at the University of Copenhagen. He observed an eclipse in 1560 and a planetary conjunction in 1563, in which Saturn and Jupiter came close together in the sky. Although the eclipse occurred at the predicted time, the conjunction did not. These initial observations marked the beginning of Brahe's career, notable for his ability to make the most accurate astronomical predictions of the sixteenth century.
Noting Brahe's extraordinary power of observation, King Frederick II of Denmark granted Brahe a lifelong pension and ownership of the island of Hveen, on which to build an observatory. And there, in 1577, he established Uraniborg, a magnificent observatory and household, where he and a retinue of assistants made measurements of planetary positions. After King Frederick II died in 1588, Brahe gradually lost favor with Danish royalty and he moved to Prague in 1599.
Brahe never accepted Copernicus's suggestion that the sun rather than the earth was the center of the solar system. Yet he was an influential figure in the Copernican revolution as a result of his comprehensive and precise set of observations of planetary positions, which were used by his successor, Johannes Kepler. Brahe was a colorful person and the subject of many remarkable historical anecdotes. For example, from the age of 19, he wore a false nose made of silver, because most of his nose had been cut off in a duel instigated by a quarrel over the accuracy of one of his astronomical observations.
Brahe died in 1601.
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