The Multiple Body Problem

Kepler published in 1609 his empirical laws of planetary motions about the Sun. Kepler's first law says that each planet (or comet) moves on a conic with the Sun as its focus. Newton published in 1687 solutions, called orbits, which have each object moving in a circle, ellipse, parabola or hyperbola thus expanding Kepler's observations. In Newton's solutions two bodies move on two separate conics. These conics each with a focus, orbit about the center of mass (barycenter) of the two bodies....