ecliptic

Example Sentences

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The Ulysses mission, launched in 1990, was the first spacecraft to leave the ecliptic plane and sample the solar wind over the poles.

From Science Daily • Oct. 14, 2025

All the planets orbit roughly along the same plane, known as an ecliptic plane, or arc across the sky if you are viewing it edge-on, according to NASA.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 26, 2025

Conjunctions occur frequently in our solar system because "the planets orbit around the Sun in approximately the same plane - the ecliptic plane - and thus trace similar paths across our sky", according to Nasa.

From BBC • Feb. 28, 2023

And whereas Ptolemy based his coordinate system on the ecliptic, Hipparchus used the celestial equator, a system more common in modern star maps.

From Scientific American • Oct. 20, 2022

The planet has a few degrees of tilt to the plane of the ecliptic, not enough to make an appreciable seasonal difference in low latitudes.

From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin