On the 11th of November, after sunset, while looking up at the sky, I became aware of the appearance of a new star, brighter than the others, located almost directly above my head. As I knew, almost from my childhood, perfectly the stars of the sky, I knew that there had never been any star in that place, and less of that brightness so intense. I was so surprised that I even doubted my senses. But when I saw other people pointing towards the new star I was convinced that it really was there.
This description of the appearance of a supernova in that autumn sky was given to us, back in 1572, by the Scandinavian astronomer Tycho Brahe at the age of 26. At that time, the Aristotelian conception that the sky was imperturbable was followed, which is why that fact was such a surprise. However, his passion for the cosmos comes much earlier, when he witnessed the solar eclipse of 1560, at which time he declared himself a bandit lover of astronomy.
About Brahe we can say many things and, certainly, nothing negligible. Of noble origin, he studied at five different universities and in one of them he found a partner who, when fighting a duel after a mathematical argument, caused him to lose part of his nose. That detail, which occurred when he was 20 years old, gave him a perfectly recognizable hallmark:his metallic nose.
Frederick II, King of Denmark at the time, had managed to survive thanks to Joergen Brahe, uncle of our “Silver Nose And that he had raised raised since he was a child. The king fell into the river from a bridge in Copenhagen castle and Joergen did not hesitate to jump into the water to save him. Unfortunately, days later he died from the consequences of the rescue. That heroic act, together with the reputation that the very nephew was gaining, made the kingdom allocate 5% of his budget to complete his training and continue with his astronomical observations. With this generous budget, Tycho built, near Copenhagen, the best observatory of the time. He worked there for 30 years, approximately the same number of years that had passed since the death of Nicolaus Copernicus. Among them they disagreed regarding the system of the universe, since the Scandinavian astronomer defended that the Sun revolved around the stationary Earth and the other planets did so around the Sun -a transition between the geocentric model of Ptolemy and the heliocentric model of Copernicus-.
Astronomiae instauratae mechanica – Tycho Brahe
While he had the grace of the king, on the same island as the observatory, good old Brahe had a monumental castle that he left represented in one of his books. There, extravagance was the order of the day. He was not separated from the dwarf Jepp , whom he had as a kind of oracle to consult his decisions. Despite this apparent dependency, the dwarf should always eat on the floor, lest he be believed to have the same social status as him. But the best is always yet to come, and if the dwarf was surprising, wait until you know that he was a moose that he had for a pet. Plus he wasn't just any moose, he was a beer moose. According to Brahe's biographer, during a dinner the animal climbed the stairs of the castle and, drunk from the amount of beer ingested, fell and died.
When Frederick's successor, Christian IV, came to the throne, Tycho Brahe was no longer welcome, so he went to Prague, specifically to the court of Rudolf II, where he was appointed Imperial Mathematician. This fact raised suspicions in the Danish court. It was commented that Tycho Brahe, a good friend of Federico II, could perhaps have been also, and very especially, of the queen, raising the suspicion that Christian IV was really an illegitimate son. We do not know if this possible love affair was the real reason for his exile. We also do not know if the voices that point to this as the story that inspired Shakespeare to write “The tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark are true. ”, although we have to admit that it has similarities.
In Prague, as an apprentice, a certain Johannes Kepler came to work with him. . Although they worked closely together, our eccentric and flirtatious astronomer was always wary of giving more information than was strictly necessary. However, when our protagonist died, Kepler quickly took over all of his work and possessions.
I confess that when Tycho died, I quickly took advantage of the absence or lack of circumspection of his heirs by taking the observations with me or, perhaps, usurping them – Johannes Kepler
Thanks to these data, Kepler was able to deduce the planetary orbits and formulate his three laws on the movement of the planets in their orbit around the Sun.
Tycho Brahe's final chapter rose to the occasion. And it is that if he did not let his dwarf eat at the same table as his guests, much less he was going to do his greatest needs when he was visiting. It seems that he stoically endured the imperious call of nature. And it also seems that this delay in evacuating, together with the huge amounts of beer that not only his beloved moose consumed, meant that, after eleven days without fireworks, "Silver Nose" found his final.
Collaboration of Marta Rodríguez Cuervo by Martonimos
Sources:Tycho Brahe, Virtual Museum of Science, Rudolf II's Extravagant Court. The scobula of the compass.