Question

what force pulls planets into a curved path when they are orbiting the sun

Answer 1

The force that pulls planets into a curved path as they orbit the Sun is known as **gravity**. According to Newton's law of universal gravitation, all objects with mass exert an attractive force on each other. In the case of the solar system, the Sun, which has a much larger mass than the planets, exerts a strong gravitational pull on them. This gravitational force causes the planets to accelerate toward the Sun, resulting in a curved orbital path rather than a straight line.

Additionally, the combination of this gravitational pull and the planets' tangential velocity (their speed in a direction perpendicular to the force of gravity) results in the elliptical orbits described by Kepler's laws of planetary motion.