Author: Ross Bannister
Software requirements: Fortran 77
Johannes Kepler is now chiefly remembered for discovering the three laws of planetary motion that bear his name published in 1609 and 1619).
Kepler's equation describes the classical motion of a mass in an inverse square gravitational field. It provides a simple yet useful approximation to the motion of the major planets of our solar system. It is useful to think of solving Kepler's equation as a forward problem - given the six orbital parameters of a planet, we can predict where the planet will be at a specific time. The inverse problem asks the reverse question. Given a set of observed positions, what are the six parameters?
The fortran code (plus user guide) provided here will attempt to infer the six orbital parameters that are consistent optimally with planetary observations.
