Kepler and Brahe did not get along well. Brahe apparently mistrusted Kepler, fearing that his bright young assistant might eclipse him as the premiere astonomer of his day. He therefore let Kepler see only part of his voluminous data.

He set Kepler the task of understanding the orbit of the planet Mars, which was particularly troublesome. It is believed that part of the motivation for giving the Mars problem to Kepler was that it was difficult, and Brahe hoped it would occupy Kepler while Brahe worked on his theory of the Solar System. In a supreme irony, it was precisely the Martian data that allowed Kepler to formulate the correct laws of planetary motion, thus eventually achieving a place in the development of astronomy far surpassing that of Brahe.