Why Dont the Planets Orbit the Solar Equator?

[Berzerker]

How satellites usually orbit

One need only look at Saturn's rings for a vivid example of how debris orbiting a planet tends to flatten out into an equatorial disk, Ward told SPACE.com. And most satellites around other planets follow a similar path, very near the equatorial plane.

"Collisions between orbiting debris naturally act to flatten material out into an equatorial disk, which then naturally accumulates into a moon with a very low-inclination orbit," Ward explained.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/moon_tilt_000216.html

The Galilean moons are all within a half degree of Jupiter's equatorial plane

[Straybow]

All those examples are far closer to the primary than our sister planets, except for Mercury (which does orbit the solar equator).

[Berzerker]

exactly, the Galilean moons orbit Jupiter's equatorial plane - the planets, other than Mercury, deviate from the solar equatorial plane... not by much, but enough for me to think the solar system is being disrupted by an interloper of some kind. The comets and asteroids are even better evidence...

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Berzerker
How satellites usually orbit

One need only look at Saturn's rings for a vivid example of how debris orbiting a planet tends to flatten out into an equatorial disk, Ward told SPACE.com. And most satellites around other planets follow a similar path, very near the equatorial plane.

Saturn's rings are unstable, and were created (IIRC) because the tidal force of Saturn itself was stronger than the self-gravitation of the object that the ring was made up from.