Well, I am disappointed that the grant unification of the cosmos has been exaggerated. I was imagining it like the hydrogen-deuterium-carbon cycle, with the two hydrogen atoms in star deuterium equating to the ecliptic and the meridian, and the third atom making carbon equating to the movement of the galactic core across the galactic plane. Missed it by that much.
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Originally Posted by grant hutchison
You wouldn't. The galactic centre doesn't coincide with the ecliptic / galactic plane crossing point. The hoo-hah is inexplicable. Grant Hutchison
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Thanks Grant – so if you added the galactic centre to the 2012-12-21 picture it would not be right behind the sun?
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Originally Posted by Hornblower
If I am not mistaken, the December solstice point is very close to the galactic plane, and the precession of Earth's spin axis will carry that point across the plane sometime in the year 2012. Thus the solstice that year will be the first one in the other galactic hemisphere. I don't expect one iota of physical consequence. A nice exercise in geometry, nothing more.
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Thanks Hornblower. It seems the close alignment between the solstice meridian and the galactic plane may have led some to confuse them with each other. For example, on
this picture of 2012, is it right that the diagonal line marked ‘galactic equator’ is close but not the same as the solstice meridian?
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Originally Posted by grant hutchison
In fact, that alignment happened more than ten years ago, in May 1998. Jean Meeus reported it in his Mathematical Astronomy Morsels (Chapter 48), but you can check it with any decent planetarium software.Grant Hutchison
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Thanks again Grant, so this part of the theory, ie galactic core moving galactic planar hemispheres as viewed from earth, is incorrect. Yet, as I understand it in line with Hornblower’s comment, the conjunction between the solstice and the galactic core does occur in 2012, does it not?
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Originally Posted by astromark
You seem to be looking for something that is not to be found. Those lines on that image mean nothing. they are not there. It was simply the easy method of understanding the geometry and movement of the components of this galaxy. As Earth trolls around the sun. Our view of the sky changes. We find the galactic center some times obscured by the sun. Thats the only significance to this annual event.
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Astromark, no I am not looking for something that is not to be found. I don’t find your comment ‘those lines are not there’ easy to understand. Thank you for the lesson in existential philosophy, but the lines are there in the picture so presumably they reflect an astronomical reality? Lines such as the ecliptic and the meridian indicate how our earth stands in relation to the cosmos. Does not this indicate they are really there?
I think the significance of this event is that the luni-solar 25765 year long precession of earth’s equinox means the December solstice will precess past the galactic core in 2012. It is true that the movement of the galactic core against the galactic equator has a roughly similar cycle? If so, a fifteen year gap between the two events is fairly close.