Planets' Secrets

The nine planets in our solar system are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, pictured in their relative sizes, from lower left to upper right. The orbits of the planets are ellipses with the Sun at one focus, though all except Mercury and Pluto are very nearly circular. The orbits of the planets are all more or less in the same plane (called the ecliptic and defined by the plane of the Earth's orbit). The ecliptic is inclined only 7 degrees from the plane of the Sun's equator. Pluto's orbit deviates the most from the plane of the ecliptic with an inclination of 17 degrees. The above diagrams show the relative sizes of the orbits of the nine planets from a perspective somewhat above the ecliptic (hence their non-circular appearance). They all orbit in the same direction (counter-clockwise looking down from above the Sun's north pole); all but Venus, Uranus and Pluto also rotate in that same sense. Free Mind Critique: People should let the scientists and the executives do their work. What good is the ACLU if the bombers get all of our secrets? If we are attacked by a nuclear bomb, what good are civil liberties? The secrets of the stars cannot be revealed.