Question

Why don't Newton's laws predict the precise orbit of Mercury? ASTRONOMY

Answer 1

One of the unusual things about the orbit of Mercury is that it is highly elliptical : The orbit of Mercury is the most eccentric of the planets in our Solar System. The planet has an orbital period of 87.969 Earth days. Mercury's orbit is inclined by 7 degrees to Earth's ecliptic.

Newton concluded that objects fall because they are pulled by Earth's gravity. Einstein's interpretation was that these objects do not fall. According to Einstein, these objects and Earth just freely move in a curved spacetime and this curvature is induced by mass and energy of these objects.General relativity, however, predicts that due to the curvature of spacetime around the Sun, the perihelion of Mercury should advance slightly more than is predicted by Newtonian gravity. The result is to make the major axis of Mercury's orbit rotate slowly in space because of the Sun's gravity alone.