Are all the planets in our solar system orbiting on the same line?
Question:
Answer:
What you are asking is essentially, are the other planets in the same plane as the earth's orbit, known as the ecliptic? No, they are not, but they are pretty close. The angle between their orbits and the plane of the ecliptic is called the inclination:
Mercury 7°
Venus 3.39°
Earth 0°
Mars 1.85°
Jupiter1.3°
Saturn2.49°
Uranus0.77°
Neptune1.77°
Pluto 17.2°
As can be seen from this list, most of the planets have orbits in the same plane as the earth, more or less.
It is also interesting that all of these planets orbit in the same direction, in more or less the same plane, and also spin in more or less the same direction (counter clockwise when seen from the celestial north pole, looking down on the solar system). The only two planets which have their rotional axes different are Neptune (tilted on its side) and Venus (a retrograde rotation; that is, it is rotating clockwise when seen from the celestial north pole). These spins also agree with the spin of the sun, which has a huge amount of mass and therefore angular momentum by comparison. It is thought that these spins are all so similar because the solar system formed out of one big rotating ball of material that coaelesced into the orbiting, spinning planets and the spinning sun.
No, they have asychronous orbits.
No. Some planets do not orbit the sun on the same line but rather are a little off. Orbits do not have to be percise circles around the sun. The mass of the planet, gravitational pull from other objects, there are a lot of factors that determine the orbit of the planets.
No, they have different orbital planes.
I agree with "hound", who submitted 'precise' planar orbits. Nothing in the universe is precise for long but, with all things factored in, the first eight planets, from Mercury to Neptune inclusive, orbit within the same plane. The exception which stands out is Pluto, which is significantly skewed: 17 degrees from the (average or mean) horizontal is significant. Let's not forget that we are limited by the accuracy of our measuring instruments, so I submit that the orbits of planets one through eight are within the same plane.
P.S. The BIG BANG, BABY question is: Why is it so?
No because the earth is tilted on its axis so standing on the equator everything would be off because of our point of view.
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