Why are all planets in the solar system aligned like a pancake, rather than in a sphere surrounding the sun?
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//This has turned out to be a tiny portion of the answer. See other comments for the proper answers. I’m not deleting this though, because combined with the responses gives extra information//
While I can’t claim to be able to keep up in astrophysics, I believe I have learned that one of the reasons is the rotation of the sun.
When the sun rotates, the bit that happens to be closest to…mercury, lets say, very slightly drags Mercury along with it, and as a new spot takes its place, it does the exact same thing, over and over, subtly influencing the orbital path over the many, many years.
But again, I could have horribly misunderstood something, as well as this is probably only part of the answer if it is true. I would *love* to have some correct me though. I think it’s all amazing, I just struggle to keep up with things sometimes:(
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