Is space structured like a flat plane where all planets align along a single y-axis, or is it akin to an expansive ocean where planets occupy positions across multiple axes?
In: Planetary Science
This is a deceptively good question; what it’s asking, in essence, is if there’s anything inherent to the nature of space where all the planets experience “flat” orbits relative to the *plane of the ecliptic* — the two-dimensional plane that contains the orbit of the Earth around the Sun.
The answer is actually no; the plane of the ecliptic is different from the average of the planets’ orbits by 1.6 degrees; the most significant deviation is Mercury’s orbit, which is off by 6.3 degrees.
The reason the orbits are *relatively* flat is because the angular momentum of all the material that made up the early solar system ended up canceling out and pushing everything into a ring, much like pizza dough spreads into a disk when it’s tossed.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/giving-a-side-eye-to-the-solar-system
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