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The poles of astronomical bodies are determined based on their axis of rotation in relation to the celestial poles of the celestial sphere. Astronomical bodies include stars, planets, dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies such as comets and minor planets (e.g., asteroids), as well as natural satellites and minor-planet moons.
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. This point is distinct from Earth's north magnetic pole. The South Pole is the other point where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface, in Antarctica.
Axial tilt of eight planets and two dwarf planets, Ceres and Pluto All four of the innermost, rocky planets of the Solar System may have had large variations of their obliquity in the past. Since obliquity is the angle between the axis of rotation and the direction perpendicular to the orbital plane, it changes as the orbital plane changes due ...
In addition to the Moon and Sun, the other planets also cause a small movement of Earth's axis in inertial space, making the contrast in the terms lunisolar versus planetary misleading, so in 2006 the International Astronomical Union recommended that the dominant component be renamed the precession of the equator, and the minor component be ...
Basically, there are also torques from other planets that cause planetary precession which contributes to about 2% of the total precession. Because periodic variations in the torques from the sun and the moon, the wobbling (nutation) comes into place. You can think of precession as the average and nutation as the instantaneous.
The north and south celestial poles appear permanently directly overhead to observers at Earth's North Pole and South Pole, respectively. As Earth spins on its axis, the two celestial poles remain fixed in the sky, and all other celestial points appear to rotate around them, completing one circuit per day (strictly, per sidereal day).
True polar wander is a solid-body rotation of a planet or moon with respect to its spin axis, causing the geographic locations of the north and south poles to change, or "wander". Unless the body is totally rigid (which the Earth is not), its stable state rotation has the largest moment of inertia axis aligned with the spin axis, with the ...
All eight planets in the Solar System orbit the Sun in the direction of the Sun's rotation, which is counterclockwise when viewed from above the Sun's north pole. Six of the planets also rotate about their axis in this same direction. The exceptions – the planets with retrograde rotation – are Venus and Uranus.