So here is what we have all been taught in school. Planets orbit around the sun in elliptical orbits and most depictions are in a single plane of orbit.
Image Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_System#/media/File:Solar_system_orrery_inner_planets.gif
Well - unfortunately this is not correct or lets say this is not reality. To see reality, we have to change our perspective. The planets don't orbit around the sun like this. Far from it. The Sun is actually moving around the core of the galaxy. So considering the motion of the entire solar system, here is the motion of the planets around the sun. As the Sun moves at a rocket speed, it drags along the planets in a cosmic dance.
Image Source : https://www.youtube.com/@spacemattersdoc
It turns out that we are moving along with the Sun at a speed of 230 km/second. So in reality we are all flying in a space ship called earth. It takes the Sun 220 million years to complete an orbit around the center of our galaxy even at that speed. And as we know the age of the Sun, we therefore know, the sun has done it around 22 times, so the age of the sun is 22 galactic years. Our Sun is middle aged and will last for around 22 more galactic years.
Further the entire solar system wobbles as it moves in a complex dance caused by the gravitational tug of other stars and solar systems.
Image Source : https://www.youtube.com/@spacemattersdoc
But lets not stop here, lets take this even further. Our Milky Way galaxy has many neighboring galaxies called the local group. Many of them are interacting under the influences of each others gravity. In fact, our galaxy is raising towards the Andromeda galaxy and will eventually merge/collide with it in about 5 billion years.
Image Source : https://www.youtube.com/@spacemattersdoc
But expanding our perspective even further we see that the local group of galaxies and many others clusters of galaxies are actually being attracted to mysterious force called the great attractor.
Image Source : https://www.youtube.com/@spacemattersdoc
But expanding the perspective even further, we realize that the effect is opposite to attraction. In fact, everything is moving away from each other. While nearby galaxies will merge but far away galaxies will move away from each other and after billions of years, they will move so far away from each other that we wont even see them. Eventually there will be nothing left but dark space.
So, we are lucky to live in the time when we see these beautiful galaxies.
And so to sum up, we just need to alter our perspective to discover a whole new world of reality. Why don't they teach reality in school ?
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