How to Use ecliptic in a Sentence

ecliptic

1 of 2 adjective
  • The planets will form a clear line along the ecliptic plane.
    — Julia Jacobo, ABC News, 26 Feb. 2026
  • The planets will trace the ecliptic plane, an imaginary line in the sky that marks the sun’s path.
    — Janet Loehrke, USA Today, 8 June 2026
  • Instead the moon’s orbit is inclined to the ecliptic plane by about five degrees.
    — Simon J. Lock, Scientific American, 2 July 2019
  • Since all planets orbit the sun on the same plane — called the ecliptic — planets are always aligned.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes, 17 Jan. 2025
  • Earth is at the center of the coin; the nodes are the two points on the coin's rim that are on the same ecliptic plane as Earth.
    — Joe Rao, Space.com, 11 July 2018
  • From our point of view, Aldebaran lies in the ecliptic, or the path along the sky that the sun, moon and planets appear to take.
    — Carlyn Kranking, Smithsonian Magazine, 27 Sep. 2024
  • However, the moon’s orbital path crosses the ecliptic twice each orbit.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes.com, 5 Sep. 2025
  • The mission will search for exoplanets in the ecliptic, which is the plane of Earth's orbit around the sun.
    — Ashley Strickland, CNN, 24 Oct. 2020
  • The ecliptic – path of the sun, moon and planets, marked in green on our chart – cuts through the Winter Circle.
    — Todd Nelson, Star Tribune, 21 Mar. 2021
  • The moon also moves close to the ecliptic, occasionally crossing it when at new moon or full moon to cause an eclipse — hence its name.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes.com, 24 Aug. 2025
  • The angle this line makes to the ecliptic plane, which is the plane of the solar system in which all the planets orbit, is the obliquity.
    — Keith Cooper, Space.com, 11 Mar. 2025
  • Twelve of the constellations the ecliptic passes through form the zodiac.
    — Joe Rao, Space.com, 27 Mar. 2025
  • During that second year, the probe will also observe areas around the ecliptic, the plane of Earth's orbit around the sun.
    — Mike Wall, Scientific American, 12 Aug. 2020
  • The Moon’s orbital path around the Earth is tilted 5° to the ecliptic, but intersects it twice each month.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes, 2 Oct. 2022
  • All star signs are signs of the zodiac—constellations on the ecliptic, a line in the sky that the Sun appears to follow.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes, 3 Sep. 2021
  • Until now, almost all images of the sun have been taken from the same point of view on Earth or in Earth’s vicinity — the ecliptic plane.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes.com, 11 June 2025
  • The observing swathes will overlap at the south and north ecliptic poles, which are points perpendicular to the plane of Earth’s orbit.
    — Alexandra Witze, Scientific American, 6 Apr. 2018
  • After that, the Solar Orbiter will drift off the ecliptic plane to begin examining the sun’s poles.
    — WIRED, 20 Sep. 2023
  • Predicting the positions of the planets along the ecliptic was very difficult for early astronomers.
    — Tony Freeth, Scientific American, 15 Dec. 2021
  • Regulus is one of the four bright stars often closely visited by the moon and planets because it’s aligned with the ecliptic—the solar system's plane.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes, 9 Sep. 2024
  • Saturn, like Earth, has a large axial tilt that is more than 26 degrees askew from the ecliptic plane in which all the major planets orbit.
    — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 23 Jan. 2025
  • The Moon orbits roughly on the same plane as the Sun—the ecliptic—which is high in the day and low in the night as seen from northerly latitudes at this time of year.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes, 25 June 2021
  • Fomalhaut lies way south of the ecliptic, which, on sky charts, depicts the sun’s annual path in front of the constellations of the zodiac.
    — Paul Douglas, Star Tribune, 27 Sep. 2020
  • The Beehive cluster also sits close enough to the ecliptic (the plane of the solar system as projected on the sky) that planets can appear to pass through it.
    — Kenna Hughes-Castleberry, Space.com, 9 Jan. 2026
  • This time of year the full moon is at the intersection of the ecliptic and celestial equator, and because of that the full moon’s path among the stars is nearly parallel to the horizon.
    — Mike Lynch, Twin Cities, 15 Sep. 2019
  • When the sun formed it was already accompanied by a swirl of gas and dust orbiting in that ecliptic plane that the planets and most asteroids would eventually occupy.
    — Dennis Overbye, New York Times, 28 Apr. 2020
  • Its position in the ecliptic—the plane of the Solar System—also provides a link to the Western zodiac.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes, 24 Jan. 2022
  • The orbit of Mercury is inclined 7 degrees relative to the ecliptic, more than twice the inclination of any other planet.
    — Jeffrey Wilkerson, Discover Magazine, 3 Feb. 2016
  • That two planets can appear to almost collide is made possible by the fact that all the planets in the Solar System orbit the Sun on the same ecliptic plane.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes, 26 Apr. 2022
  • This reasoning eliminates any Lagrange points outside of this plane of the ecliptic (the imaginary plane containing Earth’s orbit around the sun).
    — Manasee Wagh, Popular Mechanics, 29 Apr. 2022

ecliptic

2 of 2 noun
  • This path, known as the ecliptic, is the same one that the sun travels along during the day.
    — Katrina Miller, New York Times, 24 Feb. 2025
  • The planets orbit the sun in roughly the same flat plane, known as the ecliptic.
    — Jamie Carter, Space.com, 26 Feb. 2026
  • All the planets revolve around the sun in the same plane, which astronomers call the ecliptic.
    — Darryl Seligman, Space.com, 25 Feb. 2025
  • The planets and the moon follow roughly the same path through the sky, which is called the ecliptic.
    — Kristen Rogers, CNN, 27 Feb. 2020
  • The ecliptic is the plane of the solar system; all planets orbit the sun along it.
    — Jamie Carter, Space.com, 27 Apr. 2026
  • Since the solar system's plane is flat, the ecliptic is the same as the sun's path through our daytime sky.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes, 27 Feb. 2025
  • The ecliptic is the plane of the solar system and also the path of the sun through the daytime sky.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes.com, 12 June 2026
  • The arc formed by the moon and planets is a curve across the night sky known as the ecliptic, the plane of the solar system.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes.com, 18 Aug. 2025
  • This movement shifts which constellations appear in the ecliptic at what time of year.
    — Manon Bischoff, Scientific American, 8 Mar. 2026
  • All of the naked-eye planets, as well as the moon, closely follow an imaginary line in the sky called the ecliptic.
    — Joe Rao, Space.com, 27 Mar. 2025
  • The moon would have formed in the plane of Earth’s equator, with its orbit also tilted far from the ecliptic.
    — Simon J. Lock, Scientific American, 2 July 2019
  • The moments when Pluto transitions across the ecliptic are called nodes.
    — Avery Thompson, Popular Mechanics, 13 July 2018
  • The ecliptic is the plane of the solar system on which all the planets orbit the sun, and the moon travels nearby.
    — Kristen Rogers, CNN, 27 Feb. 2020
  • As seen from Earth, planets therefore appear in a line across the sky — the same line the sun takes through the sky — called the ecliptic.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes.com, 24 Aug. 2025
  • Gemini is also where the ecliptic, the pathway of the sun, moon and planets, comes farthest north.
    — Joe Rao, Space.com, 12 Oct. 2025
  • That’s because the moon’s orbital path intersects the sun’s path through Earth’s sky (the ecliptic) twice each month.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes.com, 2 Sep. 2025
  • The planets in our solar system orbit the sun essentially along a line across the sky in a plane called the ecliptic.
    — Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY, 12 Feb. 2025
  • The planets in our solar system orbit the sun essentially along the same line across the sky in a plane called the ecliptic.
    — Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY, 26 Feb. 2025
  • The planets in our solar system orbit the sun essentially along the same line across the sky in a plane called the ecliptic.
    — Marina Johnson, IndyStar, 2 July 2025
  • The moon orbits Earth on a path inclined by about 5 degrees relative to the ecliptic.
    — Jamie Carter, Space.com, 13 Feb. 2026
  • In it, each constellation is located in the ecliptic in modern times.
    — Manon Bischoff, Scientific American, 8 Mar. 2026
  • The ecliptic is also the path the sun appears to take through the sky as a result of Earth's revolution around it.
    — Joe Rao, Space.com, 27 Mar. 2025
  • That means that the planets appear just a handful of degrees above or below the sun's apparent path through the sky, called the ecliptic.
    — Doris Elin Urrutia, Space.com, 8 June 2026
  • The moon’s orbital path is tilted with respect to the ecliptic, only by about five degrees, but that’s enough to keep the moon away from the sun most of the time.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes.com, 5 Sep. 2025
  • The ecliptic also depicts the approximate monthly path of the moon in front of the zodiac.
    — Paul Douglas, Star Tribune, 27 Sep. 2020
  • Planets never appear randomly across the sky but always somewhere on the ecliptic.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes, 27 Feb. 2025
  • Even more flavors of ‘down’ Is there anything special about the direction of down relative to the ecliptic?
    — Jeff Moersch, The Conversation, 12 Jan. 2026
  • The planets coast past one another on the ecliptic, and appear to us to nuzzle one another every so often.
    — Doris Elin Urrutia, Space.com, 8 June 2026
  • Until now, almost all of the solar-watching spacecraft have orbited in the ecliptic, or the same plane that the planets travel around the sun.
    — Kenneth Chang, New York Times, 10 Feb. 2020
  • Because of the position of the ecliptic, the path the planets follow across the sky, some planets may not be visible from certain parts of the world.
    — Diana Leyva, Nashville Tennessean, 29 July 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ecliptic.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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