She was born in Knudstrup, Sweden as the youngest of ten children, to Otte Brahe, the "rigsråd," or advisor, to the King of Denmark; and Beate Bille Brahe, leader of the royal household for Queen Sophie. Sophia's oldest brother was astronomer Tycho Brahe. Though he was both more than a decade her senior and raised in a separate household, the pair became quite close by the time Sophia was a teenager. The brother and sister were united by their work in science, and by their family's opposition to science as an appropriate activity for members of the aristocracy.