The astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler appear on a gold coin of the Czech Mint from a free series dedicated to famous historical couples.

The arrival of the comet has always been considered an evil omen - according to superstition, the hair of the comet heralded war and plague. However, the German boy Johannes Kepler was so fascinated by the comet that he traded his religious studies for mathematics and astronomy. He had to forgo stargazing because he was severely myopic and therefore studied the movement of celestial bodies mainly theoretically - with the help of perfect calculations... The Dane Tycho Brahe was also influenced by an ominous celestial phenomenon as a young man, but in his case it was a solar eclipse. Because he had keen eyesight, he built his career as an astronomer on systematic and precise observations with the help of sophisticated instruments he designed himself... As fate would have it, the lives of the two scientists intersected. At first they corresponded, and through their stimulating correspondence they realised that if they combined their strengths they could achieve unsuspected knowledge. They met at the very end of the 16th century in Prague, where Brahe was serving as court astronomer to Rudolf II. Great personalities used to have stormy but productive relationships. Brahe provided Kepler with one of the largest sets of astronomical data in human history, however, he died a year later. But even this short time was enough for Kepler to understand, calculate and describe the physical laws of the universe. The three “Kepler's laws“ that describe the motion of the planets around the Sun are still valid today - without knowing them, you can not go to the stars…

The medal maker Ludmila Kracíková, DiS., dedicated the reverse side of the coin to the busts of both astronomers, supplemented with the names of TYCHO BRAHE and JOHANNES KEPLER. The obverse side presents historical astronomical tools, headed by the armillary sphere, which were used to measure and predict the position of celestial bodies. As the coins of the Czech Mint are issued with the foreign licence of the island of Niue, the obverse side also bears its national emblem, the nominal value of 100 DOLLARS (NZD) and the year of issue 2023. The composition is completed by a segment of the starry sky.

Two legendary personalities, two ounces of gold and only 200 coins!