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note example of use of orbital poles for Hubble observations |
Made the header of the table unambiguous. The old "l" and "b" could have been confused with Galactic coordinates. |
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The [[north]] orbital pole of a revolving body is defined by the [[right-hand rule]]. If the fingers of the right hand are curved along the [[retrograde and prograde motion|direction of orbital motion]], with the thumb extended and oriented to be parallel to the orbital [[axis of rotation|axis]], then the direction the thumb points is defined to be the orbital north.
The poles of [[Earth's orbit]] are referred to as the [[ecliptic]] poles. For the remaining planets, the orbital pole in [[ecliptic coordinates]] is given by the [[longitude of the ascending node]] (☊) and [[inclination]] (''i''): ''l'' = ☊ - 90°, ''b'' = 90° - ''i''. In the following table, the planetary orbit poles are given in both celestial coordinates and the ecliptic coordinates for the Earth.
{|class=wikitable
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! Object !! ☊{{refn|name="jpl horizons web"}} !! ''i''{{refn|name="jpl horizons web"}} !! ''
|- align="right"
| align="left" | [[Mercury (planet)|Mercury]] || 48.331° || 7.005° || 318.331° || 82.995° || align="left" | 18 h 43 m 57.1 s || align="left" | +61° 26′ 52″
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