Who of the following discovered the laws of planetary orbits ?

Johannes Kepler is the scientist who discovered the three fundamental laws of planetary motion in the early 17th century. His work revolutionized astronomy by demonstrating that planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun at one focus, rather than in perfect circles as previously believed [c2, t3, t7]. Kepler's first law defines the elliptical path, the second law describes how a planet's speed varies relative to its distance from the Sun (sweeping equal areas in equal time), and the third law relates a planet's orbital period to its distance from the Sun [c4, t2, t3]. While Nicolaus Copernicus proposed the heliocentric model, Kepler refined it with empirical evidence and physical causality [t2, t5]. Later, Isaac Newton used his law of universal gravitation to provide the physical explanation for why Kepler's laws work [t4, t9].

Sources

1. [1] Themes in world history, History Class XI (NCERT 2025 ed.) > Chapter 5: Changing Cultural Traditions > The Copernican Revolution > p. 119
2. [2] Physical Geography by PMF IAS, Manjunath Thamminidi, PMF IAS (1st ed.) > Chapter 2: The Solar System > Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion > p. 21
3. [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler%27s_laws_of_planetary_motion