The paths are "ellipses".
They look like slightly "flattened" circles.
orbit
An orbit.
It was Johannes Kepler in 1618.
Because they each have a certain path that they follow, and the paths do not intersect.
Inertia is trying to keep each planet moving in a straight line, and the sun's gravity is trying to pull each planet into the sun. The resultant of those two vectors is the orbital path each planet follows.
The path is called an "orbit", and it has the shape of an ellipse, the Sun being at one focus of the ellipse.
The curved path of a planet around the sun is called an orbit. Orbits are elliptical in shape, with the sun located at one of the foci of the ellipse. The gravitational pull of the sun keeps the planet in its orbit as it travels around the sun.
These are known as elliptical orbits. The shape they produce is an ellipsis.
Actually,as the planet Revolve and Rotate the path is an orbit....^_^
Each planet moves in its own elliptical orbit round the Sun, then and now.
O-R-B-I-T
orbit.