everyone on replies is terrified of this fact but i just think it's so sweet and heartwarming. she's holding our hand and leading us somewhere secret and we're both giggling like kids. i love her
let’s travel through the vast unknown with mama
Space chickens
The space chickens are cute. I really like that the mama has got sunspots.
Anyways let's talk about Stellar Kinematics!!! Because it turns out the sun isn't dragging us along in a scary or unknown way, but in an extremely well studied and predicted way.
Our whole Solar System lives in the Milky Way, a huge barred spiral galaxy, at the center of which is a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A* (Sag A* for short). Sag A* and the huge bulge around it have so much gravity that the rest of the galaxy orbits around it. (The orbital mechanics of galaxies are actually a good deal more complicated than that, but it's sufficient for understanding how stars are moving.)
So the whooooole galaxy is rotating, slowly--it takes the sun nearly 250 million years to make a full orbit around the galactic center. As we move along that orbit, the whole solar system is going extremely fast, roughly 230 km/s. But the thing is, the rest of the Orion Arm around us is also orbiting the galactic center at basically the same speed. This is why the stars in the sky basically stay the same in the short term. All of our local neighborhood moving together is used to establish the Local Standard of Rest (LSR), and we measure the movements of nearby stars with relation to it.
The sun is also moving in relation to those stars. Much slower, only about 13 km/s but it's still motion. The Sun, and us with it, is slowly drifting in the direction of the star Vega, in the northern sky. The direction in which the solar system is moving in relation to the LSR is called the Solar Apex. This is likely what the screenshot in the original post is showing.
The exciting thing is, all of these motions can be observed, calculated, and predicted. We can predict the entire upcoming orbit of the galaxy, stretching out 250 million years into the future. Taking the Solar Apex and the LSR into account, we have learned that the Sun does not move precisely within the plane of the galaxy, but instead bobs above and below as it completes its orbit. Nor does the Sun always maintain the same position within the Orion Arm at all times, instead passing through more and less dense patches as it moves through time and space. Though the motion of the Solar System may seem scary or mysterious, the truth is very interesting and helps us understand our place in the cosmos.
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Yee-fuckin-Haw Bois! That’s the pilot done! 🎉
Which means bonus content, here’s a behind the scenes video! https://youtu.be/1Xuf-aHYqHU?si=qhsgze7EfwoPDyBZ
Also, I’ll be organizing a pinned post with all the links to each episode in order.
This was a wonderful story and I hope to see more.
Brilliant fantastic job on the writing, the designs, the art!
Peak Doctor Who fanfiction.
