The field was founded on Newton's laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation, which describe how bodies attract each other based on their mass and distance.
In reality, orbits are rarely perfect ellipses due to perturbing forces that constantly alter a body's path. Celestial mechanics - Scholarpedia An Introduction to Celestial Mechanics
: These three laws describe planetary motion, stating that orbits are elliptical, sweep out equal areas in equal time, and have periods related to their semi-major axes. The field was founded on Newton's laws of