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binary systems of stars revolving in ellipses
round each other; just as Bradley’s attack
on stellar parallax failed, but led to the dis-
covery of aberration, nutation, and the true
velocity of light.
Parallax .–The absence of stellar paral-
lax was the great objection to any theory of
the earth’s motion prior to Kepler’s time. It
is true that Kepler’s theory itself could have
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