What happened during the renaissance that encouraged progress in the study of matter?

During the dark ages-All that wasn't around the christian religion were lost. Knowledge and discoveries before the Dark Ages were mainly in Greek ideas. Biblic scripts however were in Latin. Therefore all inventions up to the dark ages were lost and only religious scripts preserved in the churches. Outside the church, no one knew how to write, read or even communicate.

B. semi-major axis is the answer, I hope that helps