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orrery (AWR-uh-ree, OR-uh-ree) - n., an apparatus moved by a clockwork showing the relative positions and motions of bodies in the solar system, represented by balls; any similar machine, as a planetarium.
Thanks, WikiMedia!
That one shows the planets Mercury through Saturn, with the major moons of Jupiter and Saturn but of the inner planets. Planetaria were made going back to the ancient Greeks, but this is specifically a self-moving one (with correct proportionate speeds). It was invented independently by English clockmaker George Graham (c.1710) and Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens (1703). A copy of Graham's model was made by instrument maker John Rowley for his patron Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery, after whom it came to be known in English. The earldom is named after a place in Ireland, from Gaelic Orbhraighe, literally Orbh-raighe, Orb's people, originally a tribe. (The current holder of the title, who is also Earl of Cork, is the 15th Earl.)
---L.
Thanks, WikiMedia!
That one shows the planets Mercury through Saturn, with the major moons of Jupiter and Saturn but of the inner planets. Planetaria were made going back to the ancient Greeks, but this is specifically a self-moving one (with correct proportionate speeds). It was invented independently by English clockmaker George Graham (c.1710) and Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens (1703). A copy of Graham's model was made by instrument maker John Rowley for his patron Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery, after whom it came to be known in English. The earldom is named after a place in Ireland, from Gaelic Orbhraighe, literally Orbh-raighe, Orb's people, originally a tribe. (The current holder of the title, who is also Earl of Cork, is the 15th Earl.)
---L.
