Here's a breakdown:
* Before Newton: People like Johannes Kepler had meticulously observed planetary motions and formulated empirical laws describing their orbits. However, they didn't explain *why* planets moved in those specific ways.
* Newton's breakthrough: Newton, with his groundbreaking laws of motion and universal gravitation, provided the theoretical framework. He proposed that:
* Every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
* This force, gravity, was the reason planets orbit the Sun. The Sun's immense mass creates a gravitational pull that constantly pulls the planets towards it, preventing them from flying off into space.
* The planets' motion is a balance between their inertia (tendency to move in a straight line) and the Sun's gravitational pull. This balance results in the elliptical orbits we observe.
It's important to note: Newton's work built upon the foundation laid by earlier astronomers and mathematicians. His genius was in connecting the dots and creating a comprehensive theory that explained the observed phenomena.
