Exploring Planetary Orbits and the Sun's Rotation

Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
1 reply · 2K views
rootone
Messages
3,398
Reaction score
945
Are there any good theories which can explain how the orbits of planets are not aligned with the rotation of the Sun?
I gather there is about 6 degrees of differance, which is not small.
 
Astronomy news on Phys.org
The total angular momentum of the sun is pretty small compared to the angular momentum of the planets (a few percent). If I calculated correctly, it wouldn't take a lot to shift the sun's angular momentum vector by a few degrees. If an Earth-sized body had fallen into the sun during the formation of the solar system, which is quite feasible, I think it would be enough to cause the observed misalignment.