ANU astrophysicist and cosmologist Dr Brad Tucker says there is now a potential explanation as to why Uranus’ orbit is tilted. “Uranus has always been this weird planet, it’s rotating on its side and it’s going backwards so it’s kind of going the opposite angle all the other planets do,” he told Sky News Australia. “There’s been a lot of ideas that have been put forth but none of them have been that satisfactory.” Dr Tucker said some of the theories as to why Uranus orbits the way it does, including the theory it “got smacked” by a dwarf planet or a moon, does not explain why it is so similar in “every other way” to Neptune. “Neptune and Uranus are almost identical except the way the planets move,” he said. “Now a new model has shown that maybe it’s because of, actually, moons drifting away.”
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