Orbital pole

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The orbital poles of the Solar system. The yellow dot in the centre is the Sun's North pole. Jupiter's orbital pole is in orange, Mercury in pale blue, Venus in green, Earth in blue, Mars in red, Saturn in violet, Uranus in grey and Neptune in lavender. Dwarf planet Pluto is the dotless cross off in Cepheus

An orbital pole is either end of an imaginary line running through the center of an orbit perpendicular to the orbital plane, projected onto the celestial sphere. It is similar in concept to a celestial pole but based on the planet's orbit instead of the planet's rotation.

The north orbital pole of a celestial body is defined by the right-hand rule: If you curve the fingers of your right hand along the direction of orbital motion, with your thumb extended parallel to the orbital axis, the direction your thumb points is defined to be north.

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