I’m guessing if you closed your eyes and thought about the Solar System you would see the standard flat platter of moving parts. Well this is all fine when you’re studying the relative positions of the different planets and how they orbit the sun, but it turns out just picturing the Solar System in that stagnant position is cheating it a bit.
This simple animation gives us a little bit more perspective of the amount of movement we’re doing. It’s pretty crazy to think that as still as the ground below us seems, we’re on a giant rock that is not only rotating and orbiting the sun, but also following the sun as it blazes through the universe. We’re going for quite a ride.
There’s a lot of swirl (excuse the pun) about the accuracy of this “vortex” video. Check out http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/03/04/vortex_motion_viral_video_showing_sun_s_motion_through_galaxy_is_wrong.html
Hey! I really enjoyed this post. It really took me out of my own little world that I tend to get caught up in and, it made me realize that there is so much more going on in this universe. I guess I never really thought about us all flying through the universe so fast while orbiting around the sun. My mind is actually blown right now. Thanks for creating this post; it was very interesting.
I believe it. We usually find new information like this out every twenty years. Knowledge and light are progressing. It makes sense the sun would be progressing in a direction. It will one day be super exciting to really have the technology to have an even better understanding of the solar systems around us.