De revolutionibus orbium coelestium Earth's axis rigidly to a Sun-centered sphere. The unfortunate consequence was that the terrestrial rotation axis then maintained the same inclination with respect to the Sun as the sphere turned, eliminating the seasons." To explain the seasons, he had to propose a third motion, "an annual contrary conical sweep of the terrestrial axis". It was not until the Great Comet of 1577, which moved as if there were no spheres to crash through, that the idea was challenged. In 1609, Kepler fixed Copernicus' theory by stating that the planets orbit the sun not in circles, but ellipses. Only after Kepler's
A New Theory of the Earth A New Theory of the Earth A New Theory of the Earth was a book written by William Whiston, in which he presented a description of the divine creation of the Earth and a posited global flood. He also postulated that the earth originated from the atmosphere of a comet and that all major changes in earth's history could be attributed to the action of comets. It was published in 1696 and was well received by intellectuals of the day such as Isaac Newton and John Locke. The book is organized as follows: In the introduction, Whiston discusses the Mosaic