Ask an Explainer

That force is called gravity and it what holds planets in orbit around the sun. The gravity force of the sun pulls all the planets toward it. However the lateral velocity (how fast the planets move sideways) is fast enough that instead of crashing into the sun, they miss the surface and orbit instead. Think of the planets as a ball attached to a string, the sun is like a person swinging the ball, and gravity is the imaginary string which pulls the planet in a circle.