The heliocentric model, proven by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, shows that Earth orbits the Sun due to gravitational forces.
People long ago believed that Earth was at the center of everything, and the Sun, Moon, and stars moved around it. This idea was called the geocentric model. But later, scientists like Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei discovered this was false. They proved that the Sun is at the center of our solar system, and the planets, including Earth, move around it. This is called the heliocentric model (helios means Sun in Greek).
One of the reasons planets orbit the Sun is because of gravity, a powerful force that pulls objects toward each other. Like Earth’s gravity keeps us on the ground, the Sun’s gravity pulls the planets toward it. But instead of falling into the Sun, the planets keep moving in a curved path, creating an orbit.
Johannes Kepler studied how planets move and found that their orbits are shaped like stretched-out circles, called ellipses. Galileo Galilei used a telescope to look at the sky and found proof that planets like Jupiter have their own moons, showing that not everything moves around Earth.
