Orbit Gallery

Epicycles of Mercury and Venus, 1823 C017/8061

Epicycles of Mercury and Venus, 19th-century diagram. This geocentric (Earth-centred) model shows the orbits of Mercury and Venus as a series of epicycles (loops). Mercury and the Sun are at lower left. Venus is at upper right. The heliocentric system of Copernicus and Kepler replaced these epicycles with elliptical orbits around the Sun. At lower left is an astronomical quadrant. At lower right are the proportional magnitudes of 12 solar system bodies (see C017/8059) and of the Sun as seen from those bodies. The Georgium Sidus is Uranus. This page is from Universal Technological Dictionary (1823) by British author George Crabb (1778-1851)

© MIDDLE TEMPLE LIBRARY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Ernest Rutherford, caricature

Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937). Caricature of the New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford, with an electron orbiting his head. Rutherford's early work on radioactivity at McGill University in Canada led to his 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His most famous work took place in 1909 at the University of Manchester, England. The Geiger-Marsden experiment fired helium ions (alpha particles) at thin gold foil. The resulting scattering pattern led to the Rutherford model of the atom. From 1919 to his death, Rutherford directed the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. He was knighted in 1914, and made Baron Rutherford of Nelson in 1931. He was buried in Westminster Abbey

© GARY BROWN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Phases of the Moon, 1708

Phases of the Moon. This is plate 19 from the 1708 edition of the star atlas Harmonica Macrocosmica by the Dutch-German mathematician and cosmographer Andreas Cellarius (1596-1665). It shows the varying phases and appearances of the Moon as it circles the Earth (centre). The Sun is at top. The inset at lower left shows the full cycle of phases. The geometry in relation to the Sun is at lower right. The Latin title, carried by putti, is split between upper left and right. Harmonica Macrocosmica, first published in 1660, had 30 colour plates with Latin text. This edition was published in Amsterdam by Petrus Schenk and Gerard Valk

© ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY