Can the planets in the solar system ever form a straight line?

The planets in our solar system never line up in one perfectly straight line like they show in the movies. If you look at a two-dimensional plot of the planets and their orbits on a piece of paper you may be lead to believe that all the planets will circle around to the same line eventually. read more

The orbits precess slightly, so, in principle all the planets could line up is a straight line if all of orbital planes happened to cross each other along the same line and all of the planets were at that point at the same time. read more

The planets in our solar system never line up in one perfectly straight line. If you look at a two-dimensional plot of the planets and their orbits on a piece of paper you may be lead to believe that all the planets will circle around to the same line eventually. In reality, the planets do not all orbit perfectly in the same plane. read more