Why aren't planetary orbits arranged like electrons to the nucleus?

Question

Gravity has always been portrayed to me as a spherical range and the planets are orbiting in the orbits because they are caught in the gravity field pulling it torwards the sun while the planet is trying to move in a straightline, basically torque. The planets however orbit at only maybe a few degrees from eachother around the sun. If the gravity field is 360 degrees then how come there are no objects in orbits above or below what we know as the solar system? Basically I am asking how come the Solar System is like a thick donut around the sun instead of objects being arranged randomly like the electrons of a nucleus?

That may be true, but you would think something from another system would be caught in the sun's gravity at different angles if solar systems sometimes collided. Heck even the comets seem to orbit at the same level. How come our image of the universes seems so 2-dimensional when the forces acting are 3-demensional.

I know my reference to nucleus is wrong, but I assumed everyone knew I referred to the grade school model of the atom and not the one that includes the chaos of the unpredictability of electron movement.

OK people seem to agree the planets are in that plane because of the original spinning that created the sun and its system. That tells me why the planets are in that area, but is there absolutely no probablity of a foreign object orbiting the sun in a different plane. Thanks for the explanation of why planets are in that plane though.

Answer 1

I won't waste time hashing over again what so many others have correctly said. Instead, to address the other part of your question: there is no reason at all why some foreign (meaning not an original part of our solar system) matter does not orbit the sun outside the plane of the ecliptic. It is just very unlikley.

First and foremost, in order for that to happen, we actually have to encounter some object from outside our solar system. Most of the space between star systems is pretty empty, so you can probably imagine that that does not happen very often.
Even so, when we do have a visitor pass through (say from top to bottom) it is far more likely that it will do just that, pass through. The sun's gravity will cause it to change course, no doubt, but for the most part it will just continue on through our solar system and pass out the other side.
On rare occasion, it is possible that the something (sun's or Jupiter's gravitational influence, collision with an asteroid, etc) may cause the visitor to alter it's course just enough that it would fall into an orbit. But these would be very rare occurrances.
I have no doubt that there will be some things that may be orbiting outside the plane of the ecliptic, but that is a lot of empty space to search.
But if you want to grab yourself a nice telescope and go looking for something to name after yourself, the I wish you the best of luck.

Answer 2

Ok, several folks mentioned that the original rotation of the solar nebula is why the planets are all pretty much in the same plane, which is absolutely correct. But not all objects in our solar system stick to a plane. There's the Oort Cloud, which is a fairly spherical cloud of comets surrounding our solar system. Some of them come into the inner solar system from time to time (that's when we see the familiar comet tail, something they don't have when they are far away). These comets have orbits at random inclinations to the planetary plane, completely random - some are perpendicular, some orbit "backwards", etc. And as you supposed, any object from outside the solar system that happens to come 'round for a visit could also be at any random inclination.

Answer 3

The answer to this question lies in the formation of thhe solar system. This was created out of a big cloud of gas, several lightyears big, which slowly began to pull together because of its own gravity. I dont know if you know what angular momentum is, but this is, like energy, a conserved quantity. You could see it as the amount of rotation a body has. This quantity is a vector. So, when this great cloud started to collapse, it had some rotation. However, when all the particles came closer to the centre of the cloud, they needed to rotate faster, to keep the angular momentum conserved. So after a lot of fireworks and the ignition off the sun, the angular momentum had to be put somewhere. And it was put in the planets. This is allso the reason all the planets rotate in the same direction around the sun.

Hope ive made it understandable, its not easy to grasp the concept of angular momentum. Perhaps this wikipedia page will help with that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_momentum

Answer 4

Well, the Sun spins in one axis. The theory of planet formation is that a big blob of dust and gas comes together, and as it begins to glob together, it begins to spin. The spinning motion causes the other dust to spin (I don't know if this is a result of something crazy like frame dragging, or something more simple like uneven density (gravity fluctuations) that enable this). However, this motion is what causes the cloud to spin and become more dense and flat. (same goes for most galaxies as well).

An atom however, is using a stronger force (way stronger than gravity) to hold it's electrons in place. It's using electro-magnetic force, and the Strong and Weak Nuclear forces to bind the sub atomic particles together. And while models show electrons zipping around in different directions, I've been told that the model might not actually predict where the electron is, especially when quantum math gets involved (it might be here, it might be there, it might be here and there, or neither here or there) FREAKY!

I'm not a physist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Answer 5

1) in the case of the solar system, it comes from the original motion of the pre-solar system nebula. All planets were "created" out of a cloud of mist that rotated on itself. Therefore, all planets have approximately the same orbital patern.

2) electron don't orbit the nucleus. They only have a high probability of presence not too far from it. (in the weird shapes you might be refering too) Therefore, since it's not even close to an orbital system, you can't even start to compare both phenomenons.

Answer 6

Along with the great answers, it should be stated that Jupiter and Saturn both have an affect on the other planets, pulling planets in at around the same orbital plane as them.

Answer 7

Well, lots of objects are out of the ecliptic (the plane of earth's orbit), including Mercury and Pluto. The reason most of them are roughly in the same plane are is the conservation of angular momentum.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclination and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecliptic

Answer 8

Wow - I can't wait to see the answer to this one- great question!