MIND SOLAR SYSTEM Internal Frame-Dragging and the Active Stability of the Ecliptic

The stability and planarity of the planetary ecliptic constitute an unexplained regularity in standard solar system dynamics. Conservation of angular momentum explains the existence of a preferred orbital plane, but not its persistence against chaotic perturbations over billions of years. Recent numerical analyses have clarified that the solar system's chaotic dynamics is dominated by slow Lyapunov directions that preserve quasi-conserved orbital quantities. However, this is a description of why the system does not destabilize, not an explanation of why the system is planar in the first place.

This paper proposes that the architecturally organized angular momentum of the entire solar system generates a frame-dragging field capable of actively maintaining ecliptic planarity. The effective angular momentum of the solar system — dominated by the orbital motion of Jupiter and Saturn, approximately 2 × 10⁴³ kg·m²/s — is roughly 100 times larger than the solar rotational angular momentum. The resulting frame-dragging frequency at Earth's orbit is of order 10⁻¹⁷ rad/s, three orders of magnitude larger than the Lense-Thirring effect of the Sun alone.

The solar system is shown to lie two orders of magnitude below the momentum-coherence threshold predicted by the MIND universality law (π/π₀ ≈ 10⁻²), placing it in the linear regime of the coherence function. This preserves General Relativity recovery at the 1% level while allowing the architectural enhancement of the effective angular momentum to produce a cumulative alignment effect over cosmological timescales.

The characteristic damping timescale is approximately 3.2 billion years, comparable to the age of the solar system (4.57 billion years). This ratio predicts that initial inclinations of order 15° — typical of protoplanetary disk turbulence — should be reduced to approximately 3°–4°, precisely matching the observed range for seven of eight planets. Mercury's anomalous inclination of 7° is interpreted as the result of a competition between solar quadrupole perturbation and frame-dragging damping, with the crossover between the two regimes occurring at approximately 0.5 AU.

The hypothesis is falsifiable through VLBI astrometry, pulsar timing, Gaia astrometric residuals, and historical ecliptic precession observations. The predicted frame-dragging precession of order 10⁻⁵ arcseconds per year lies within the reach of current and near-term astrometric facilities. The solar system thus provides a natural laboratory for testing the MIND constitutive hypothesis at a scale complementary to galactic dynamics.

The question is not whether the Sun's rotation drags spacetime — Gravity Probe B confirmed that it does. The question is whether the organized angular momentum of the entire solar system produces a frame-dragging response large enough to maintain the ecliptic over billions of years. That question is now experimentally testable.

KEYWORDS

Frame-dragging; Lense-Thirring effect; ecliptic stability; solar system dynamics; momentum coherence; MIND framework; gravitomagnetism; orbital architecture; quadrupole perturbation; falsifiable prediction; VLBI astrometry; Gaia astrometry; pulsar timing; General Relativity recovery.