What law describes the motion of planets around the sun?

Kepler's laws of planetary motion specifically describe how planets move in elliptical orbits around the sun. Johannes Kepler formulated three fundamental laws that detail different aspects of planetary motion. The first law states that planets follow elliptical orbits with the sun at one focal point, which helps explain the varying distances between planets and the sun during their orbits. The second law, often referred to as the law of equal areas, indicates that a line segment joining a planet and the sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time, effectively illustrating how a planet moves faster when it is closer to the sun. The third law provides a relationship between the time a planet takes to orbit the sun and its average distance from the sun, stating that the square of a planet's orbital period is directly proportional to the cube of its semi-major axis.

While Newton's laws of motion provide the underlying principles of force and motion and are essential for understanding the dynamics of celestial bodies, it is Kepler’s empirical laws that specifically describe the motion of planets around the sun in a clear and direct manner. Other choices, such as Einstein's theory of relativity and Galileo's law of falling bodies, pertain to different aspects of physics and motion, thus not addressing the specific nature