# Can a planet's changing tilt be aligned with the rotation around its star? [duplicate]

What I'm asking is if the tilt of a planet can "follow" the rotation around its star so that, for example, its north pole would always lean towards the star, and thus always be under daylight. The planet could have a tilt similar to earth's 23.5°. And can that planet have a rotation around its axis, allowing for day/night cycles closer to the equator? Hopefully this image will explain what I mean. The tilt (red line) stays the same, but the pole is leaning toward the star throughout the whole year, while the planet rotates around its axis.

• Seems this is a dupe but I can't find the previous one. – Carl Witthoft Oct 5 '18 at 14:20
• Yes, I had missed that one. The answer below from User55725 include a link to the post – pend Oct 5 '18 at 22:11

Kinda. Uranus has an axial tilt of 98$$^\circ$$, which means that it is only 8$$^\circ$$ off of having a pole that faces exactly the Sun. However, it wasn't formed that way. We predict that large objects, probably protoplanets, struck Uranus early in its life, which caused its axial tilt to be shifted almost sideways. Uranus definitely has day night cycles (since the 8$$^\circ$$ give some leeway), but, just like the Earth has midnight days and polar nights close to the poles, Uranus will have the same, but with a much larger range. In fact, only the equator and places near the equator would be spared from this, just as you described.