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EARTH, the moon and the other planets in our solar system orbit the sun in roughly the same plane in space. This is because the solar system was made from a spinning cloud of dust that flattened into a disc shape because of its rotational movement. When the planets and moons formed, they remained in this plane, and our flat solar system was born.
What this means for stargazing is that the planets, sun and moon all trace a similar path across the sky. The imaginary line that the sun traces over the course of a year is called the …
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