We are not about to cross the galactic plane, either (he says, braving the accusation of intellectual snobbery).
At the Sun's current position in its orbit around the galaxy, the Sun and the galactic centre roughly align in Earth's sky at around the December solstice. In geocentric terms, the Sun is crossing the galactic equator, which is an imaginary great circle in the sky, not be confused with the mean gravitational plane of the galaxy. The Sun performs this evolution in the Earth's sky every year, and the alignment has been close to the galactic centre for many years. The absolute closest geometric alignment with the galactic centre was a few years ago, and the solstic alignments are therefore now moving steadily away from the galactic centre.

Grant Hutchison

Just out of curiosity, when's our next crossing of the galactic plane scheduled? How often do they happen?

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Science is like sex. Sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it.
-- Richard Feynman

I can't support the galactic plane statement beyond the fact that I had encountered somewhere recently in a source I took to be reliable. Don't even remember where I saw it. So if that's incorrect, mea culpa.

The Sun cycles up and down through the galactic plane with an amplitude of 70pc on either side, making a plane-crossing every 30 million years or so. We're north of the plane at present and heading farther north, with most of the 30-million-year curve ahead of us before our next plane-crossing.

Grant Hutchison

01101001

thanks for the yogisms link, now those are good laughs .
a few of them had me rolling

thx

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it shows you how much i know....not much i guess----"sohhfly"

Wow, talk about a cultural gap.. I always thought those sayings were attributed to Yogi Bear Bear nor coach are ever on TV here.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
"Your right to hold an opinion is not being contested. Your expectation that it be taken seriously is." -- Jason Thompson
Meet the OOONG TOE.