Basic astronomy query

[Akatakata]

I have a simple doubt about the orbits of the planets in our solar system

Is there a recorded instance where all planets in the solar system have lined up straight?

And is there any planet whose orbit is perpendicular to earth's orbit?

[Strange]

All the planets are within a few degrees of Earth's orbital plane: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_inclination#Orbits

 

That means that the planets can never be truly aligned, because they are not all in the same plane.

 

There is some discussion here: http://sciencequestionswithsurprisinganswers.org/2013/08/28/when-do-the-planets-in-our-solar-system-all-line-up/

[pavelcherepan]

I have a simple doubt about the orbits of the planets in our solar system

Is there a recorded instance where all planets in the solar system have lined up straight?

And is there any planet whose orbit is perpendicular to earth's orbit?

 

They can get somewhat close, but not sure if they can line up perfectly. For example in 1962 Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus (and Pluto as well) were all in the same 95^o region, but not lined up perfectly.

 

In fact, if such lining up ever happened, it won't happen ever again unless something drastic happens with orbits of planets. If you take orbital periods of all 8 planets, multiply by 100 (to get rid of decimals), find the least common multiple of these and divide it by 100 again then the period of such an event occurring is a staggering 21,035,804,751,234 years, which is about 1700 longer than the entire life of the Sun for example.

[Enthalpy]

All planets are near the ecliptic plane, but objects beyond Neptune have randomly distributed orbit inclination - these are too small to be planets. The same pattern applies to the moons of Jupiter, Saturn and to the Milky Way.

 

I imagine (but could be horribly wrong) that gas and dust concentrate in a disk early as the system forms, thin because of shocks, but wide because of the pre-existing rotation, and that nearer to the centre this happens faster. Then planets and moons form, consequently in a plane for those near to the centre.

[Mordred]

flatenning of a nebula cloud is a normal consequence of the rotation. Though shockwaves may have have caused the original anistropy to cause enough compression to start gravitational collapae.

[Enthalpy]

I understand up to now that the polar component of the gas' or dust's random speed gets lost by unelastic shocks. Is there an other process?