How is the solar system moving
Surely, many of you have seen a gif or have watched a video showing the movement of the solar system.
The video , released in 2012, became viral and made a lot of noise. He caught me shortly after his appearance, when I knew about space much less than now. And most of all I was confused by the perpendicularity of the plane of the orbits of the planets to the direction of motion. Not that this was impossible, but the Solar System can move at any angle to the plane of the Galaxy. You ask why remember long-forgotten stories? The fact is that right now, with the desire and availability of good weather, everyone can see in the sky a real angle between the planes of the ecliptic and the Galaxy.
Astronomy says that the angle between the planes of the ecliptic and the galaxy is 63 °.
But the figure itself is boring, and even now, when adherents of the flat Earth arrange a sabbath on the sidelines of science, I want to have a simple and clear illustration. Let's think about how we can see the planes of the Galaxy and the ecliptic in the sky, preferably with the naked eye and not moving away from the city? The Galaxy plane is the Milky Way, but now, with an abundance of light pollution, it is not so easy to see it. Is there any line approximately close to the galactic plane? There is - this is the constellation Cygnus. It can be clearly seen even in the city, and it is easy to find it, relying on bright stars: Deneb (Alpha Cygnus), Vegu (Alpha Lyra) and Altair (Alpha Orel). "Torso" Swan roughly coincides with the galactic plane.
Well, we have one plane. But how to get a visual line of the ecliptic? Let's think what the ecliptic is all about? According to the modern strict definition of the ecliptic, this is the cross section of the celestial sphere by the orbit plane of the barycenter (center of mass) of the Earth-Moon. On the ecliptic, the Sun moves on average, but we do not have two Suns, on which it is convenient to draw a line, and the constellation Cygnus will not be visible in sunlight. But if we recall that the planets of the Solar System are also moving approximately in the same plane, then it turns out that the parade of the planets will just about show us the plane of the ecliptic. And now you can observe Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in the morning sky.
As a result, in the coming weeks in the morning before sunrise, it will be possible to very clearly see just such a picture:
Which, surprisingly, perfectly consistent with the textbooks of astronomy.
A gif is more correct to draw like this:
Source: Rhys Taylor astronomer site rhysy.net
The question may cause the relative position of the planes. Are we flying <- / or <- \ (if you look from the outside of the Galaxy, the north pole is at the top)? Astronomy says that the Solar System is moving relative to the nearest stars in the direction of the constellation Hercules, to a point not far from Vega and Albireo (Beta Cygnus), that is, the correct position <- /.
But this fact, alas, cannot be checked “on the fingers”, because, even if they did it two hundred and thirty-five years ago, they used the results of many years of astronomical observations and mathematics.
How can you determine where the solar system is moving relative to nearby stars? If we can record the movement of a star on the celestial sphere for decades, then the direction of motion of several stars will tell us where we are moving relative to them. Let's call the point to which we are moving, apex. Stars that are not far from him, as well as from the opposite point (anti-apex), will move weakly because they fly to or from us. And the farther the star is from the apex and anti-apex, the greater will be its own movement. Imagine you are driving down the road. Traffic lights at intersections in front and behind will not be greatly shifted to the sides. But lampposts along the road will flicker (to have a large movement of their own) outside the window.
The GIF shows the movement of the Barnard star, which has the largest proper movement. Already in the 18th century, astronomers had records of the position of stars in the interval of 40-50 years, which allowed to determine the direction of motion of slower stars. Then the English astronomer William Herschel took the star catalogs and, without approaching the telescope, began to calculate. Already the first calculations in the Mayer catalog showed that the stars do not move erratically, and the apex can be determined.
Source: Hoskin, M. Herschel's Determination of the Solar Apex, Journal of Astronomy, Vol. 11, P. 153, 1980
And with the data of the Laland catalog, the region was significantly reduced.
From the same place
Then went the normal scientific work - the refinement of data, calculations, disputes, but Herschel used the correct principle and made a mistake of only ten degrees. Information is still being collected, for example, just thirty years ago, the speed of movement was reduced from 20 to 13 km / s. Important: this speed should not be confused with the speed of the solar system and other nearby stars relative to the center of the Galaxy, which is approximately 220 km / s.
Well, since we mentioned the speed of movement relative to the center of the galaxy, it is necessary to find out here. The galactic north pole is chosen the same way as the earth one - arbitrarily by agreement. It is located near the star Arcturus (alpha Booles), approximately upward in the direction of the wing of the constellation Cygnus. But in general, the projection of the constellations on the map of the Galaxy looks like this:
Those. The solar system moves relative to the center of the galaxy in the direction of the constellation Cygnus, and relative to local stars in the direction of the constellation Hercules, at an angle of 63 ° to the galactic plane, <- /, when viewed from the outer side of the galaxy, the north pole from above.
But the comparison of the solar system with a comet in the video is absolutely correct. The NASA IBEX spacecraft was specifically designed to determine the interaction between the boundary of the solar system and interstellar space. And according to his data there is a tail.
NASA illustration
For other stars, we can see astrospheres (stellar wind bubbles) directly.
NASA Photos
Concluding the conversation, it is worth noting a very positive story. Created in 2012, the original video DJSadhu originally promoted something unscientific. But, thanks to the viral distribution of the clip, he spoke with real astronomers (astrophysicist Rhys Tailor speaks very positively about the dialogue) and, three years later, made a new, much more reality-compliant video without antiscientific constructions.
The video , released in 2012, became viral and made a lot of noise. He caught me shortly after his appearance, when I knew about space much less than now. And most of all I was confused by the perpendicularity of the plane of the orbits of the planets to the direction of motion. Not that this was impossible, but the Solar System can move at any angle to the plane of the Galaxy. You ask why remember long-forgotten stories? The fact is that right now, with the desire and availability of good weather, everyone can see in the sky a real angle between the planes of the ecliptic and the Galaxy.
We check scientists
Astronomy says that the angle between the planes of the ecliptic and the galaxy is 63 °.
But the figure itself is boring, and even now, when adherents of the flat Earth arrange a sabbath on the sidelines of science, I want to have a simple and clear illustration. Let's think about how we can see the planes of the Galaxy and the ecliptic in the sky, preferably with the naked eye and not moving away from the city? The Galaxy plane is the Milky Way, but now, with an abundance of light pollution, it is not so easy to see it. Is there any line approximately close to the galactic plane? There is - this is the constellation Cygnus. It can be clearly seen even in the city, and it is easy to find it, relying on bright stars: Deneb (Alpha Cygnus), Vegu (Alpha Lyra) and Altair (Alpha Orel). "Torso" Swan roughly coincides with the galactic plane.
Well, we have one plane. But how to get a visual line of the ecliptic? Let's think what the ecliptic is all about? According to the modern strict definition of the ecliptic, this is the cross section of the celestial sphere by the orbit plane of the barycenter (center of mass) of the Earth-Moon. On the ecliptic, the Sun moves on average, but we do not have two Suns, on which it is convenient to draw a line, and the constellation Cygnus will not be visible in sunlight. But if we recall that the planets of the Solar System are also moving approximately in the same plane, then it turns out that the parade of the planets will just about show us the plane of the ecliptic. And now you can observe Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in the morning sky.
As a result, in the coming weeks in the morning before sunrise, it will be possible to very clearly see just such a picture:
Which, surprisingly, perfectly consistent with the textbooks of astronomy.
A gif is more correct to draw like this:
Source: Rhys Taylor astronomer site rhysy.net
The question may cause the relative position of the planes. Are we flying <- / or <- \ (if you look from the outside of the Galaxy, the north pole is at the top)? Astronomy says that the Solar System is moving relative to the nearest stars in the direction of the constellation Hercules, to a point not far from Vega and Albireo (Beta Cygnus), that is, the correct position <- /.
But this fact, alas, cannot be checked “on the fingers”, because, even if they did it two hundred and thirty-five years ago, they used the results of many years of astronomical observations and mathematics.
Scattering stars
How can you determine where the solar system is moving relative to nearby stars? If we can record the movement of a star on the celestial sphere for decades, then the direction of motion of several stars will tell us where we are moving relative to them. Let's call the point to which we are moving, apex. Stars that are not far from him, as well as from the opposite point (anti-apex), will move weakly because they fly to or from us. And the farther the star is from the apex and anti-apex, the greater will be its own movement. Imagine you are driving down the road. Traffic lights at intersections in front and behind will not be greatly shifted to the sides. But lampposts along the road will flicker (to have a large movement of their own) outside the window.
The GIF shows the movement of the Barnard star, which has the largest proper movement. Already in the 18th century, astronomers had records of the position of stars in the interval of 40-50 years, which allowed to determine the direction of motion of slower stars. Then the English astronomer William Herschel took the star catalogs and, without approaching the telescope, began to calculate. Already the first calculations in the Mayer catalog showed that the stars do not move erratically, and the apex can be determined.
Source: Hoskin, M. Herschel's Determination of the Solar Apex, Journal of Astronomy, Vol. 11, P. 153, 1980
And with the data of the Laland catalog, the region was significantly reduced.
From the same place
Then went the normal scientific work - the refinement of data, calculations, disputes, but Herschel used the correct principle and made a mistake of only ten degrees. Information is still being collected, for example, just thirty years ago, the speed of movement was reduced from 20 to 13 km / s. Important: this speed should not be confused with the speed of the solar system and other nearby stars relative to the center of the Galaxy, which is approximately 220 km / s.
Even further
Well, since we mentioned the speed of movement relative to the center of the galaxy, it is necessary to find out here. The galactic north pole is chosen the same way as the earth one - arbitrarily by agreement. It is located near the star Arcturus (alpha Booles), approximately upward in the direction of the wing of the constellation Cygnus. But in general, the projection of the constellations on the map of the Galaxy looks like this:
Those. The solar system moves relative to the center of the galaxy in the direction of the constellation Cygnus, and relative to local stars in the direction of the constellation Hercules, at an angle of 63 ° to the galactic plane, <- /, when viewed from the outer side of the galaxy, the north pole from above.
Cosmic tail
But the comparison of the solar system with a comet in the video is absolutely correct. The NASA IBEX spacecraft was specifically designed to determine the interaction between the boundary of the solar system and interstellar space. And according to his data there is a tail.
NASA illustration
For other stars, we can see astrospheres (stellar wind bubbles) directly.
NASA Photos
Positive at last
Concluding the conversation, it is worth noting a very positive story. Created in 2012, the original video DJSadhu originally promoted something unscientific. But, thanks to the viral distribution of the clip, he spoke with real astronomers (astrophysicist Rhys Tailor speaks very positively about the dialogue) and, three years later, made a new, much more reality-compliant video without antiscientific constructions.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/410291/