Why are all planets in the solar system aligned like a pancake, rather than in a sphere surrounding the sun?
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Basically, its because of what’s called centrifugal force. When an object (or in this case, a cloud of space dust) begins spinning, parts of the object pull away from the axis (poles) that the object is spinning around. Imagine spinning a rope with a weight tied to the end. The weight moves outward and away from the central point of your hand. The same thing happens with big objects, like planets and space clouds. Gravity is the rope holding everything to the star and centrifugal force makes the object, over time, flatten out as all its atoms try to move away from the axis of spin. In the case of a solar system, this happens before the planets form. The nebula destined to be a solar system flattens out into a disc. Then the space debris collides and collects to form the planets.
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