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Venus rotates clockwise, and Uranus has been knocked on its side and rotates almost perpendicular to the rest of the Solar System. The ecliptic remains within 3° of the invariable plane over five million years, [2] but is now inclined about 23.44° to Earth's celestial equator used for the coordinates of poles. This large inclination means ...
The dipole magnetic moment of Neptune is about 2.2 × 10 17 T·m 3 (14 μT·R N 3, where R N is the radius of Neptune). Neptune's magnetic field has a complex geometry that includes relatively large contributions from non-dipolar components, including a strong quadrupole moment that may exceed the dipole moment in strength. By contrast, Earth ...
The Great Dark Spot was captured by NASA's Voyager 2 space probe in Neptune's southern hemisphere. The dark, elliptically shaped spot (with initial dimensions of 13,000 × 6,600 km, or 8,100 × 4,100 mi), was about the same size as Earth, and was similar in general appearance to Jupiter's Great Red Spot.
Another common form of resonance in the Solar System is spin–orbit resonance, where the rotation period (the time it takes the planet or moon to rotate once about its axis) has a simple numerical relationship with its orbital period. An example is the Moon, which is in a 1:1 spin–orbit resonance that keeps its far side away from
For gaseous or fluid bodies, such as stars and giant planets, the period of rotation varies from the object's equator to its pole due to a phenomenon called differential rotation. Typically, the stated rotation period for a giant planet (such as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) is its internal rotation period, as determined from the rotation ...
[2]: 419–420 Alternatively, astronomers R. S. Harrington and T. C. van Flandern proposed that same year that an encounter with a rogue object several times more massive than Earth could provide the gravitational influence and energy necessary to eject Pluto and reverse Triton's orbit whilst disrupting the rest of the Neptune system. [3]
It is almost random-looking in the way it rotates." [ 6 ] Another example is that of galaxies ; from careful observation by the Keck and Hubble telescopes of hundreds of galaxies, a trend was discovered that suggests galaxies such as our own Milky Way used to have a very chaotic rotation, with planetary bodies and stars rotating randomly.
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