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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.
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 ...
The orbits are ellipses, with foci F 1 and F 2 for Planet 1, and F 1 and F 3 for Planet 2. The Sun is at F 1. The shaded areas A 1 and A 2 are equal, and are swept out in equal times by Planet 1's orbit. The ratio of Planet 1's orbit time to Planet 2's is (/) /.
Most of the material orbits and rotates in one direction. This uniformity of motion is due to the collapse of a gas cloud. [1] The nature of the collapse is explained by conservation of angular momentum. In 2010 the discovery of several hot Jupiters with backward orbits called into question the theories about the formation of planetary systems. [2]
Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 times the mass of Earth and slightly larger than Neptune. [a] Neptune orbits the Sun once every 164.8 years at an average distance of 30.1 astronomical units (4.50 × 10 9 km).
Then comes Saturn at 24.5%, Neptune at 7.9%, and Uranus at 5.3%. The Sun forms a counterbalance to all of the planets, so it is near the barycenter when Jupiter is on one side and the other three jovian planets are diametrically opposite on the other side, but the Sun moves to 2.17 R ☉ away from the barycenter when all jovian planets are in ...
For example, there were no asteroids at the 3:1 resonance — a distance of 2.5 AU (370 million km; 230 million mi) — or at the 2:1 resonance, at 3.3 AU (490 million km; 310 million mi). These are now known as the Kirkwood gaps. Some asteroids were later discovered to orbit in these gaps, but when closely analyzed their orbits were determined ...