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2008 Oct 5. Searching Heaven and Earth for the Real Johannes Kepler. by Dava Sobel, Discover Magazine Nov 2008 issue. Galileo may be science's most famous martyr, but it was Kepler who solved the mystery of the planets. Excerpt: Zielona Gora, Poland—The great German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) arrived in this forested region to serve his last employer exactly 380 years ago—reason enough for some two dozen science historians to gather here and celebrate with a conference. For five days in late June, they regaled each other with the fruits of their own recent research into their hero’s achievements ....
His Rudolphine Tables of 1627 (his “crowning publication,” according to Gingerich) enabled him to predict the first observable transits of Mercury and Venus—the passages of those planets across the face of the sun—both in 1631. Kepler, however, never witnessed either event. He died in 1630, on a frustrated journey to collect payments owed him by several patrons....
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