I am sooooo confused.
The answer to Are sun synchronous orbits possible for any place on Earth? ends with In short, yes, sun-synchronous orbits are possible for any location on Earth. and mentions that this is true only because they pass over the poles twice a year, based on comments there.
I had thought that 98° inclination (for example) meant inclination with respect to an equatorial orbit, and therefore never passing beyond 82° North or South latitude. I had thought that the precession is induced about the symmetry axis of the equatorial bulge and therefore would never pass through the axis of the Earth. Am I wrong?
What am I missing?
Possibly helpful video runs for about six days of simulation time:
