Thanks for posting that. The explanation can and should be expanded (no pun intended) further. The following should throw the flat earthers and even the flat diskers into even more frigid brain freeze.
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No problem. When I first saw this, I was kind of stunned, to be honest. I had never really thought of it this way. . . but the reality is truly amazing. . . .
The term theory sheds more light on the subject in this case.
From Wikipedia:
the scientific definition of a theory is a logical self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a certain natural phenomenon that is supported by considerable experimental evidence
I think it would be accurate to say that Ptolemy’s theory was proven wrong when it failed to account for a “full Venus”. At that point it could no longer be said to describe the behavior of solar system.
However as a model is it still useful in some cases, for example in celestial navigation we speak of the “Ecliptic” meaning the path the sun apparently follows across the sky.
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Is that a fact…
The moon orbits the earth at roughly right angles to the axis of the earth but in the same plane. Likewise the moons of Jupiter and Saturn orbit the planet.
Thus a plot of the actual movement of the moons throughout an orbit of the sun will be a series of loops around the sun. There is no reason to expect other than the same as the planets orbit around the movement of the sun as it orbits the centre of the galaxy.
That presentation suggest the plane of planets is at right angles to the movement of the sun.
I did not look at the other planet’s moons…
Yes, our Moon makes some small loops around the Sun… and the Earth makes some wobbles!
The wobbling of the Earth on the orbit is because the Earth does not orbit around the Sun; the common barycenter of Earth+Moon does this. The Moon orbits around this barycenter. The Earth too, but the barycenter is always inside the Earth at 1400 to 2000 km below the sublunar surface (depending on the true distance Earth>Moon), therefore it is just a wobble.
The same thing for the Sun: The barycenter Earth+Moon does not orbit around the Sun, but around the barycenter of the ‘Sun with all planets’. This barycenter may be anywhere from the Sun’s center to 2.3 Sun radii out from the center; if the 4 giant gas planets are in line, it is the farthest outside.
Hence, the Sun wobbles around the Milky Way’s center too.
Seen from the Earth, the Sun’s angular diameter is around 32 arcminutes. Hence, the greatest possible distance between the solar system’s barycenter and the Sun’s center is about 37 arcminutes.
Now, this distance is 1.6 sun radii, rising to an intermediate maximum of 2.0 radii in February 2022.
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These are screen shots of a recent TV program about the 1700 year old city of Zutphen in the eastern part of the country. An old church there possesses a first print of Copernicus famous book ‘On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres’ which was written in 1543 just before his death. The paper of the pages and the inkt is, after all that time, in a remarkable mint condition although it is kept in a non conditioned environment.
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Urs,
I didn’t explain myself very well in questioning the video posted by cmakin.
That video tries to suggest the true movement of the planets through space creates a spiral as the sun moves. I think the video is very wrong.
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True !
I could not detect, if you were serious or sarcastic. I preferred, to reply in a neutral manner…
These animated spirals are very nice.
Nearly as important for the humanity, as comparing particles descending the esophagus, after drinking a glass of water, versus the spirals after a glass of Gin.
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From the gin’s point of reference it’s the esophagus that’s spiraling around it. Therefore is the gin descending or the esophagus ascending? Which model is correct? (That depends on if you’re the gin, the esophagus, or an outside observer.)
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