Do the planets and moons in our solar system tend to orbit and rotate in the same plane? If so, what would?

Question

be the cause of such uniformity? Why do all the planets orbit the Sun in the same direction?

Answer 1

The moon is on the nodes when it's plane and the plane of the Earth intersect. This occurs every 18.6 years. Besides the rest of the planets on their orbital plane, the Milky Way too, has a plane. It is on a galactic scale. The Milky Way, an ellipsoid, is a squashed sphere rather than a rugby ball (5 to 1 ratio). It is 16 kiloparsecs in diameter. It is slightly reminiscent of the Andromeda Galaxy save it is irregular and of uneven density.



http://www.rc-astro.com/photo/id1034.htm...

Answer 2

Yes, they do.  The cause which most scientists agree on is because the planets formed out of a spinning disc of space dust, which the sun also formed out of.

Answer 3

When a star begins to form all the surrounding matter must either finds an orbit or falls into the star. When there are multiple planes of orbit they tend to conflict. After a while the multiple orbits cause all the matter to collide and average out until only one plane is left and it is there were all the remaining dust and debris begin to coalesce into planets.

Answer 4

to the person on top, why'd you cop my name?  ;-)

yes.  all matter in space is moving.  at some point, gravity starts to collapse it, but since it was moving, generally not randomly, it retains that initial motion, forming somewhat of a spiral, until it stabilizes.

you might have noticed that Pluto is farther out of the plane.

the inner system tends to clean itself up.

the outer system has less interaction between bodies, so the movement has more variation.