Helical Model: Our Solar System is a vortex ??

[Diche Bach]

A buddy on another forum posted a link to this in that forums "science and technology section." You can see my comment on it there on Youtube

That is extremely cool, but I'm a bit skeptical of its accuracy. Not an astronomer, so I don't know for sure . . . but I was under the impression that the path of the sun's rotation around the galactic center was relatively in line with the galactic plane. Also I was under the impression that the portion of the Milky Way visible in Earth's night sky is roughly in line with the plane of the ecliptic, not orthogonal to it.

So I'm not sure if that is accurate or not.

I figured if any of my "cyber contacts" could answer this question, the Kerbonauts could!

Been a long time since I played any KSP. Might have to fire it up in the near future

[Scotius]

Potato, potatoh. Even if planets are lagging a bit behind the Sun, it is negligible. I do not understand why some people are trying so hard to destroy neat, orderly heliocentric model?

[andrewas]

The galactic plane is about 60 degrees off the ecliptic, so the planetary orbits do form a skewed helix if viewed from a reference point slower than the sun. Everything else in that video is crap. http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/03/04/vortex_motion_viral_video_showing_sun_s_motion_through_galaxy_is_wrong.html

[pellinor]

To me the words sound like esoteric philosophy about ideas that are not well-defined. Has nothing to do with real science.

However, the pictures are great! Just imagine time as the orthogonal direction and you get the same plot. Just this time it makes sense.

[vger]

Potato, potatoh. Even if planets are lagging a bit behind the Sun, it is negligible. I do not understand why some people are trying so hard to destroy neat, orderly heliocentric model?

It doesn't hurt the heliocentric model at all, really. All it's doing is changing the point of reference to look at the motion in a different way.

I still doubt it's accurate though. The axis of revolution for the planets in that video is perpendicular to the direction in which the sun is moving, and I highly doubt that is really the case. Maybe somebody can confirm this, as I wasn't able to find any info on it. Aren't the 'axes' of solar systems in the galaxy more or less parallel to the spin of the galaxy itself? It would also help to know the orientation of our galaxy relative to the center of the universe.

[Kryten]

It doesn't hurt the heliocentric model at all, really. All it's doing is changing the point of reference to look at the motion in a different way.

The video (and the original paper it's based on) depict the sun consistently trailing all of the planets as it travels in a helical path; this would require their orbits to be centred well away from the sun. Watch the video and follow one of the planets relative to the sun; it's not circular at all.

[peadar1987]

And as far as I remember, the point of the video was "planets orbit the sun in a helix, therefore magic and woo". Utter rubbish unfortunately.

[Armchair Rocket Scientist]

And as far as I remember, the point of the video was "planets orbit the sun in a helix, therefore magic and woo". Utter rubbish unfortunately.

Yep. Pseudoscience from someone who doesn't understand how gravity works. It's about as legitimate as timecube.com.

[Diche Bach]

It doesn't hurt the heliocentric model at all, really. All it's doing is changing the point of reference to look at the motion in a different way.

I still doubt it's accurate though. The axis of revolution for the planets in that video is perpendicular to the direction in which the sun is moving, and I highly doubt that is really the case. Maybe somebody can confirm this, as I wasn't able to find any info on it. Aren't the 'axes' of solar systems in the galaxy more or less parallel to the spin of the galaxy itself? It would also help to know the orientation of our galaxy relative to the center of the universe.

Andrewas post up above there is to an article that goes through how the video is inaccurate.

No, Our Solar System is NOT a “Vortexâ€Â

In the helical model, he shows the planets as orbiting around the Sun perpendicular to the motion of the Sun around the galaxy; "face-on", if you like. This is wrong. Because the orbits of the planets are tipped by 60°, not 90°, they can sometimes be ahead and sometimes behind the Sun. That right there, and all by itself, shows this helical depiction is incorrect. In the real model, heliocentrism, you do get that sort of ahead-and-behind motion, exactly as we observe in the real sky.

Main thing to me is that the tilt of the plane of the ecliptic (and thus roughly most of the planets in our solar systems motions around the sun) are at about 60-degrees off the galactic plane, not 0-degrees as both you and I posited nor 90-degrees as the animator depicts. The other big problem is conflating the terms helical and "vortex" which are not identical. I suspect the postions of the planets depict them too far behind the sun as well, even if it was in fact a 90-degree and not a 60 degree slant.

Its a shame he didn't take the time to consult an astronomer on the details as it is otherwise a well-done and compelling piece. Agree that the 'mystical' parts might not agree with everyone but a bit of that cannot hurt.

[vger]

Main thing to me is that the tilt of the plane of the ecliptic (and thus roughly most of the planets in our solar systems motions around the sun) are at about 60-degrees off the galactic plane, not 0-degrees as both you and I posited nor 90-degrees as the animator depicts. The other big problem is conflating the terms helical and "vortex" which are not identical. I suspect the postions of the planets depict them too far behind the sun as well, even if it was in fact a 90-degree and not a 60 degree slant.

Its a shame he didn't take the time to consult an astronomer on the details as it is otherwise a well-done and compelling piece. Agree that the 'mystical' parts might not agree with everyone but a bit of that cannot hurt.

That's exactly what I figured. While the paths of some stars 'might' create a pattern that looks like a vortex or helix, not all of them would, because the 'planes' that their planets rest on are not all the same. In some solar systems, it wouldn't look like a vortex at all.

Also, if one wants to make a case for the universe being 'alive,' there are much better examples to use.

[Brotoro]

It's drivel. The Sun is NOT "like a comet that drags the planets along in its wake," because comets do not drag anything along in their wake. This just shows that he doesn't understand comets, either.

Certainly the planets follow distorted helical paths (more complicated that the video shows) as the solar system moves through galactic space. This is nothing new.

[magnemoe]

It doesn't hurt the heliocentric model at all, really. All it's doing is changing the point of reference to look at the motion in a different way.

I still doubt it's accurate though. The axis of revolution for the planets in that video is perpendicular to the direction in which the sun is moving, and I highly doubt that is really the case. Maybe somebody can confirm this, as I wasn't able to find any info on it. Aren't the 'axes' of solar systems in the galaxy more or less parallel to the spin of the galaxy itself? It would also help to know the orientation of our galaxy relative to the center of the universe.

This, if you are in orbit around the moon, its your point of reference not earth or the sun or galactic center. (ignoring that orbits around moon is unstable)

And as other linked, pretty everything in the video is wrong,

[gooddog15]

according to this model, It's doesn't really look like a helix. The angle in which the planets rotate could not be at what we call 180/0 degrees from our suns orbital plane. It could just be at 140 - 240 degrees, with the satellites paths becoming just a bunch of squiggly lines.

all this model shows, is that the satellites are moving around the sun, with their orbits being disturbed by the gravitational pull of another body, constantly having it go into a loop, which our current, nice model would support.

everything else with this vid is not really right. It just sounds like a kid, with some animation skills just created this for a science class.

Edited September 18, 2014 by gooddog15

[NovaSilisko]

Isn't this forum supposed to be about science?

[Red Iron Crown]

It's drivel. The Sun is NOT "like a comet that drags the planets along in its wake," because comets do not drag anything along in their wake. This just shows that he doesn't understand comets, either.

If I had a nickel for every person who couldn't understand that a comet's tail precedes it when moving away from the Sun...

Edited September 17, 2014 by Red Iron Crown

[Sky_walker]

Comet tail isn't static. It's not "dragged by" a comet (at least: not in the same way planets are). Whatever comet tail is ahead or behind the comet doesn't have anything to deal with to what Brotoro said.

Edited September 17, 2014 by Sky_walker

[Dedjal]

Booring video, interesting read.

And give the man some slack. He thought he had understood something that the rest of the world had not.

I wish him better luck next time and hope that he does a tad more research before trying to debunk established theories.

[Kryten]

Booring video, interesting read.

And give the man some slack. He thought he had understood something that the rest of the world had not.

I wish him better luck next time and hope that he does a tad more research before trying to debunk established theories.

The guy behind this 'theory' is deceased.

[KerikBalm]

If you mean the original "paper" that the CGI guy read, fine...

But the guy in charge of making the video is still alive as far as I know.

He also doesn't believe in evolution by natural selection.

He's some new age pseudoscientist lunatic.

[Tommygun]

Space tornado, they could get a third Sharknado movie out of this.

[trekkie_]

the issue with this concept is it tries to give the illusion of some profound meaning, where there is none. It's just a different perspective of how things move through the solar system, when we're used to just seeing the sun 'still'.

Obviously, the universe is kind of like a fractal, in that you will see the same types of things and shapes repeating somewhat from the small scale to the largest scale.

What I'd really be more interested in seeing is the path the galaxies take through the universe.

Edited September 18, 2014 by trekkie_

[Camacha]

the issue with this concept is it tries to give the illusion of some profound meaning, where there is none. It's just a different perspective of how things move through the solar system, when we're used to just seeing the sun 'still'.

That would be interesting, if it made sense. The representation in the clip however, is totally wrong on most points. It's just misinformation, pure and simple.