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| | Furniture Finisher Takacs from Creemore, loves shopping, diet and polo. Has enrolled in a global contiki voyage. Is incredibly thrilled specifically about visiting Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. |
| {| class=wikitable style="text-align:center"
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| |+ Inclination to the invariable plane for the [[gas giant]]s:
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| !Year!!Jupiter!!Saturn!!Uranus!!Neptune
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| |2009<ref name=meanplane/>||0.32°||0.93°||1.02°||0.72°
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| |142400<ref name=mean142k4>{{cite web
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| |date=2009-04-08
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| |title=MeanPlane (invariable plane) for 142400/01/01
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| |url=http://home.surewest.net/kheider/astro/Mean142k4.gif
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| |accessdate=2009-04-10}} (produced with Solex 10)</ref>||0.48°||0.79°||1.04°||0.55°
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| |168000<ref name=mean168k>{{cite web
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| |date=2009-04-06
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| |title=MeanPlane (invariable plane) for 168000/01/01
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| |url=http://home.surewest.net/kheider/astro/Mean168k.gif
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| |accessdate=2009-04-10}} (produced with Solex 10)</ref>||0.23°||1.01°||1.12°||0.55°
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| The '''invariable plane''' of a [[planetary system]], also called '''Laplace's invariable plane''', is the plane passing through its [[barycenter]] (center of mass) perpendicular to its [[angular momentum]] [[vector (geometric)|vector]]. In the [[Solar System]], about 98% of this effect is contributed by the orbital angular momenta of the four [[jovian planet]]s ([[Jupiter]], [[Saturn]], [[Uranus]], and [[Neptune]]). The invariable plane is within 0.5° of the orbital plane of Jupiter,<ref name=meanplane>{{cite web
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| |date=2009-04-03
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| |title=MeanPlane (invariable plane) for 2009/04/03<!-- J2000.0 (2000/01/01.5) is needed -->
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| |url=http://home.surewest.net/kheider/astro/MeanPlane.gif
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| |accessdate=2009-04-03}} (produced with [http://chemistry.unina.it/~alvitagl/solex/ Solex 10])</ref> and may be regarded as the weighted average of all planetary orbital and rotational planes.
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| This plane is sometimes called the "Laplacian" or "Laplace plane" or the "invariable plane of Laplace", though it should not be confused with the [[Laplace plane]], which is the plane about which [[Orbital plane (astronomy)|orbital planes]] [[Precession of the ecliptic|precess]].<ref>S. Tremaine, J. Touma, and F. Namouni (2009). [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009AJ....137.3706T Satellite dynamics on the Laplace surface], ''[[The Astronomical Journal]]'' '''137''', 3706–3717.</ref> Both derive from the work of (and are at least sometimes named for) the [[France|French]] [[astronomer]] [[Pierre Simon Laplace]].<ref>La Place, Marquis de (Pierre Simon Laplace). ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=k-cRAAAAYAAJ&printsec=titlepage#PPA121,M1 Mécanique Céleste]'', translated by Nathaniel Bowditch. Boston: 1829, in four volumes (1829–1839). See volume I, chapter V, especially page 121. Originally published as ''Traite de mécanique céleste'' (''Treatise on Celestial Mechanics'') in five volumes, 1799–1825.</ref> The two are equivalent only in the case where all [[Perturbation theory|perturbers]] and [[Orbital resonance|resonances]] are far from the precessing body. The invariable plane is simply derived from the sum of angular momenta, and is "invariable" over the entire system, while the Laplace plane may be different for different orbiting objects within a system. Laplace called the invariable plane the ''plane of maximum areas'', where the area is the product of the radius and its differential time change dR/dt, that is, its velocity, multiplied by the mass.
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| {{solar system inclinations}}
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| ==Description==
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| The magnitude of the orbital angular momentum vector of a planet is <math>L = RMV</math>, where <math>R</math> is the orbital radius of the planet (from the barycenter), <math>M</math> is the mass of the planet, and <math>V</math> is its orbital velocity. That of Jupiter contributes the bulk of the Solar System's angular momentum, 60.3%. Then comes Saturn at 24.5%, Neptune at 7.9%, and Uranus at 5.3%. The [[Sun]] forms a counterbalance to all of the planets, so it is near the barycenter when Jupiter is on one side and the other three jovian planets are diametrically opposite on the other side, but the Sun moves to 2.17 solar radii away from the barycenter when all jovian planets are in line on other side. The orbital angular momenta of the Sun and all non-jovian planets, moons, and [[small Solar System body|small Solar System bodies]], as well as the axial rotation momenta of all bodies, including the Sun, total only about 2%.
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| If all Solar System bodies were point masses, or were rigid bodies having spherically symmetric mass distributions, then an invariable plane defined on orbits alone would be truly invariable and would constitute an inertial frame of reference. But almost all are not, allowing the transfer of a very small amount of momenta from axial rotations to orbital revolutions due to tidal friction and to bodies being non-spherical. This causes a change in the magnitude of the orbital angular momentum, as well as a change in its direction (precession) because the rotational axes are not parallel to the orbital axes. Nevertheless, these changes are exceedingly small compared to the total angular momenta of the system (which is conserved despite these effects, ignoring the even much tinier amounts of angular momentum ejected in material and gravitational waves leaving the Solar System, and the extremely tiny torques exerted on the Solar System by other stars, etc.), and for almost all purposes the plane defined on orbits alone can be considered invariable when working in [[Newtonian dynamics]].
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| ==Position==
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| All planetary orbital planes wobble around the invariable plane, meaning that they rotate around its axis while their inclinations to it vary, both of which are caused by the gravitational [[Perturbation (astronomy)|perturbation]] of the other planets. That of Earth rotates with a quasi-period of 100,000 years and an inclination that varies from 0.1° to 3°. If long-term calculations are performed{{citation needed|date=February 2009}} relative to the present [[ecliptic]], which is inclined to the invariable plane by about 1.5°,<ref name=meanplane/> it ''appears'' to rotate with a period of 70,000 years and an inclination that varies between 0° and 4°. Specifically, Earth's orbit (the ecliptic) is inclined to the invariable plane by 1°34'59"−18"T, where T is the number of centuries since 1900. Its [[J2000.0]] value is 1°34'43.3".<ref>Arthur N. Cox, ed., ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=w8PK2XFLLH8C&pg=PA294 Allen's Astrophysical Quantities]'' (fourth edition, New York: Springer-Verlag, 2000) 294.</ref> The inclination of the orbit of Jupiter to the invariable plane varies over the range of 14'–28'.
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| ==References==
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| {{reflist}}
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| {{DEFAULTSORT:Invariable Plane}}
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| [[Category:Dynamics of the Solar System]]
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Furniture Finisher Takacs from Creemore, loves shopping, diet and polo. Has enrolled in a global contiki voyage. Is incredibly thrilled specifically about visiting Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve.