Sophia Brahe

Sophie Brahe, also known as Sophia Thott (24 August 1556 – 1643), was a Danish horticulturalist and student of astronomy, chemistry, and medicine, best known for assisting her brother Tycho Brahe with his astronomical observations.

Life

She was born in Knudsturp, as the youngest of ten children, to Otte Brahe rigsråd, or advisor to the King of Denmark; and Beate Bille Brahe, leader of the royal household for Queen Sophie. Famous astronomer Tycho Brahe, 10 years her senior, was Sophie's oldest brother. When she was 17, she started assisting her brother with his astronomical observations in 1573, and helped him with the work that became the basis for modern planetary orbit predictions. She frequently visited his observatory Uranienborg, on the then-Danish island of Hveen. Tycho wrote that he had trained her in horticulture and chemistry, but he told her not to study astronomy. He expressed with pride that she learned astronomy on her own, studying books in German, and having Latin books translated with her own money so that she could also study them (Tjørnum). 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. Tycho referred with admiration to her 'animus invictus', her "determined mind" (Det Kongelige Bibliotek).

Brahe

Brahe (originally Bragde) is the name of a Scanian noble family that was influential in both Danish and Swedish history but has its family roots in Sweden. The first member of the family is speculated to have been Verner Braghde from Halland. Better documented is Peder Axelsen Brahe who appears in late 14th century records. He fathered two sons, Thorkild and Axel Pedersen Brahe. What later became the Danish branch descended from Axel and what later became the Swedish, descended from Thorkild's daughter, Johanna Torkildsdotter Brahe.

Per Brahe was in 1561 granted dignity as a count by Eric XIV of Sweden and in 1620 was the family introduced on the Swedish House of Knights (Riddarhuset) as the first counts.

Danish family

55 Cancri c

55 Cancri c (abbreviated 55 Cnc c), also named Brahe, is an extrasolar planet in an eccentric orbit around the Sun-like star 55 Cancri A, making one revolution every 44.34 days. It is the third known planet in order of distance from its star. 55 Cancri c was discovered on June 13, 2002 and has a mass roughly half of Saturn.

In July 2014 the International Astronomical Union launched a process for giving proper names to certain exoplanets and their host stars. The process involved public nomination and voting for the new names. In December 2015, the IAU announced the winning name was Brahe for this planet. The winning name was submitted by the Royal Netherlands Association for Meteorology and Astronomy of the Netherlands. It honors the astronomer Tycho Brahe.

Discovery

Like the majority of known extrasolar planets, 55 Cancri c was detected by observing changes in its star's radial velocity. This was achieved by making sensitive measurements of the Doppler shift of the star's spectrum. At the time of discovery, 55 Cancri A was already known to possess one planet (55 Cancri b); however, there was still a drift in the radial velocity measurements which was unaccounted for.