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In fact, the angle between the axis of the earth and the ecliptic plane is about 23.5 degrees. If you look in the next animated image, you can see that while earth moves in an orbit around the sun in the ecliptic plane, it rotates around its own axis under that angle of 23.5 degrees all the while.
The same thing happens as Earth passes the slower moving outer planets. When we pass Jupiter, for example, the gas giant appears to reverse course in the sky for a couple of months. A schematic of how retrograde motion works when Earth (T) passes an outer planet (P) as they both orbit the sun (S).ometimes the planets appear to change direction in the sky. This retrograde motion is entirely an illusion caused by the Earth passing the slower moving outer planets. Sometimes, the planets seem to move backwards!