video
Dancing Uranus
Video Transcript
![Graphic showing the tilts of planets in the solar system](https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/images/activities/planet_tilts-500px.jpg)
This graphic shows how much each planet in our solar system tilts on its axis. Notice how Uranus is tilted a whopping 98 degrees! Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Richard Barkus | + Expand image
Imagine our solar system as a dance floor.
The planets are moving to pretty much the same rhythm.
But one of them is doing the side shuffle: the rebellious Uranus.
Just how different is Uranus’s dance?
Very different.
While Earth’s axis is tilted about 23 degrees, Uranus tilts almost 98 degrees!
Uranus’ axis is so tilted, it actually looks like the planet is rotating on its side.
How did this all happen?
One theory is that a body the size of our Earth collided with Uranus a long time ago, radically throwing off its rotation.
Until we know for sure, the planet’s strange tilt remains one of the great mysteries in the dance of the universe
And Uranus will keep doing the side shuffle like nobody’s watching.