Kepler's laws of planetary motion law" is what became the Second Law in the set of three; but Kepler did himself not privilege it in that way. Johannes Kepler published his first two laws about planetary motion in 1609, having found them by analyzing the astronomical observations of Tycho Brahe. Kepler's third law was published in 1619. Kepler had believed in the Copernican model of the solar system, which called for circular orbits, but he could not reconcile Brahe's highly precise observations with a circular fit to Mars' orbit—Mars coincidentally having the highest eccentricity of all planets except Mercury. His first law reflected this discovery.
Planetary transits and occultations Planetary transits and occultations In astronomy, planetary transits and occultations occur when a planet passes in front of another object, as seen by an observer. The occulted object may be a distant star, but in rare cases it may be another planet, in which case the event is called a "mutual planetary occultation" or "mutual planetary transit", depending on the relative apparent diameters of the objects. Mutual occultations or transits of planets are extremely rare. The most recent event occurred on 3 January 1818, and the next will occur on 22 November 2065. Both involve the same two planets: Venus