A seismic shift occurred in astronomy during the Scientific Revolution, beginning with 16th-century polymath Copernicus and his proposal that the Earth revolved around the sun. By the 17th century, ...

Figure 1: The semi-major axis versus eccentricity distribution for various ‘cold’ populations. In all cases only objects with inclinations less than 4° are plotted. a , Real Kuiper-belt objects.

Most scientists agree that a major collision 4.5 billion years ago ... Earth-Moon eccentricity vector and Kozai-Lidov oscillations ... Moon orbit with the current day semi-major axis, ...

Termed Milankovitch cycles, eccentricity considers the shape of Earth's orbit changing from circular to more elliptical over 100,000 year timescales, while obliquity refers to the varying 'tilt ...