If the earth were the center of the universe and the moon, planets, and sun all moved around the earth, logic would say that all of these celestial objects should move in the same direction across the sky, and relative to the celestial background

The sun and moon both follow this pattern, but the other planets have periods of retrograde motion. How did the Ptolemaic model explain retrograde motion and how is it more easily explained by the heliocentric model.


Ptolemaic theory used planets revolving around the sun while the sun moved around the earth, with retrograde motion associated with the motion around the sun. We now know this is simply all planets revolving around the sun, with retrograde motion related to earth and planets moving and different speeds around the sun. The moon always moves the same way because it truly does move around the earth, and the sun moves the same way because earth rotates as it revolves around the sun.

Environmental & Atmospheric Sciences

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