Sentences with phrase «plane of the ecliptic»

(The moon orbits the Earth at a slight angle, crossing the plane of the ecliptic twice a month.)

To begin with, they orbited close to the plane of the ecliptic in the same direction as the planets, but their orbits were deformed by the galaxy's tidal force and by interactions with nearby stars, gradually becoming more inclined and forming a more or less spherical reservoir,» Morais said.

Approximately at the base of the plane of the ecliptic.

With a few exceptions, the planetary satellites orbit in the same sense as the planets and approximately in the plane of the ecliptic but this is not generally true for comets and asteroids.

The Kuiper Belt — a doughnut - shaped region 30 — 50 AU from the Sun — contains about 70 % of all TNOs — those with nearly circular orbits near the plane of the ecliptic.

All these satellites have observed the Sun from the plane of the ecliptic, and so have only observed its equatorial regions in detail.

Subsequent observations determined that the planetary body has an orbital period of 3.63 years, with a semi-major axis of around 2.36 AUs (slightly closer than Ceres's 2.77 AUs) and an eccentricity of 0.090 and an inclination of 7.14 degrees from the plane of the ecliptic (NASA factsheet).

It first traveled to Jupiter, to «slingshot» past the planet into an orbit which would take it far above the plane of the ecliptic.