ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Heliocentric orbit

Imagine you are playing with a ball. You put the ball in the middle of a big playground, and this is like our Sun in the center of our solar system. Then you start walking around the ball, and this is like a planet orbiting around the Sun. This is called the heliocentric orbit.

Instead of just walking around the ball, planets move in a special way. They have a path that they follow, like a racetrack. This path keeps them moving around the Sun in a specific direction, and this is what we call the heliocentric orbit.

It's important to understand that the planets are not just flying around the Sun randomly. They are controlled by something called gravity, which is like a big magnet that keeps everything in place. Because of gravity, the planets keep moving in their heliocentric orbit around the Sun, and that's why we can see them in the sky every night.

Overall, a heliocentric orbit is just a fancy way of saying that planets move around the Sun in a specific path because of gravity. Just like how you can make a ball move in a certain way by kicking it, the Sun makes the planets move in a certain way by pulling on them with its gravity.
Related topics others have asked about: