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Axial tilt of eight planets and two dwarf planets, Ceres and Pluto All four of the innermost, rocky planets of the Solar System may have had large variations of their obliquity in the past. Since obliquity is the angle between the axis of rotation and the direction perpendicular to the orbital plane, it changes as the orbital plane changes due ...
A celestial object's axial tilt indicates whether the object's rotation is prograde or retrograde. Axial tilt is the angle between an object's rotation axis and a line perpendicular to its orbital plane passing through the object's centre. An object with an axial tilt up to 90 degrees is rotating in the same direction as its primary.
For planets and other rotating celestial bodies, the angle of the equatorial plane relative to the orbital plane – such as the tilt of the Earth's poles toward or away from the Sun – is sometimes also called inclination, but less ambiguous terms are axial tilt or obliquity.
The plane of the Earth's orbit about the Sun is called the ecliptic, and the plane perpendicular to the rotation axis of the Earth is the equatorial plane. The angle between the ecliptic and the equatorial plane is called variously the axial tilt, the obliquity, or the inclination of the ecliptic, and it is conventionally denoted by i.
Relationship of Earth's axial tilt (ε) to the tropical and polar circles. The Arctic Circle is the southernmost latitude in the Northern Hemisphere at which the centre of the Sun can remain continuously above or below the horizon for twenty-four hours; as a result, at least once each year at any location within the Arctic Circle the centre of the Sun is visible at local midnight, and at least ...
At noon of January 1st 2000 AD, the mean value of the tilt was 23° 26′ 21.406″ (according to IAU 2006, theory P03), the corresponding value being 23° 26′ 10.633" at noon of January 1st 2023 AD. The main long-term cycle causes the axial tilt to fluctuate between about 22.1° and 24.5° with a period of 41,000 years.
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The latitude of the polar circles is + or −90 degrees (which refers to the North and South Pole, respectively) minus the axial tilt (that is, of the Earth's axis of daily rotation relative to the ecliptic, the plane of the Earth's orbit). This predominant, average tilt of the Earth varies slightly, a phenomenon described as nutation.