SHAPE OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM May 13, 2007
Posted by wmmbb in Humankind/Planet Earth.trackback
This diagram represents a solar system whose shape I do not recognize. Perhaps not so much as misconception as a failure to appreciate the nature of the solar system and its relations with the wider universe. The graph from the National Geographic suggests a reconception is required.
:
Graphic: National Geographic News.
Now this requires some explanation:
Our solar system flies through space in the shape of a speeding bullet, according to data from NASA’s two Voyager spacecraft. The sun and its planets are known to streak through the void of space at approximately 62,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) an hour.
The system travels within a bubble of solar wind—made of charged particles from the sun—called the heliosphere. The edge of this bubble collides with the Milky Way galaxy’s magnetic field at a distance some 200 times farther from the sun than Earth is.
A research team led by Merav Opher at Virginia’s George Mason University found that, just outside the solar system, this interstellar magnetic field is inclined at a 60-degree angle relative to the plane of the Milky Way.
The solar system takes on its streamlined shape as it strikes the magnetic field at this angle, Opher explained.
(See an interactive map of the solar system.)
“The shape of the solar system, this bullet, is really shaped by what lies ahead of us—the interstellar magnetic field,” Opher said. “The [prevailing] idea is that the environment just outside our solar system is patchy and turbulent,” she added. “There are lots of stars exploding and dying outside our solar system.”
Reference: National Geographic News via Truthdig.
This is interesting. From where we are, we see ourselves as being in a flat plane. To someone far away, we might appear to be a solar system that looks like a potato chip or some other shape.