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Uranus got double-tapped?

Discover why Uranus is tilted over on its side and the intriguing collisions that shaped its unique icy structure.

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One of the enduring mysteries of our solar system is why Uranus is tilted over on its side. If you measure the angle of a planet's rotation axis (the location of its north pole) compared to the plane of its orbit, you find that all the planets in the solar system are tipped. Jupiter is only 3°, but Earth is at a healthy 23° angle; Mars is too. Venus is tipped so far over it's essentially upside-down (we know this because it spins the wrong way).

Uranus, weirdly, is at 98°, like it's rolling around the outer solar system on its side. The best guess is that it got hit hard by something planet-sized long ago, knocking it over (though there are other, more speculative, ideas). The problem with that is that its moons and rings all orbit around its equator, meaning their orbital planes are tipped as well. It's ...

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