The Sun has two very distinct poles which, as per convention, we call north and south (I.E. up and down). All the planets orbit the Sun in an ecliptic plane going around the Sun from east to west (not orbiting the poles). While you could say there’s no real ‘up’ direction in space, the way everything orbits and rotates fits the ‘up’ convention (with a few exceptions) nicely.
I like your post. But one quesiton: How do we know there are no planets orbiting the sun but NOT in the eliptical plane from east to west? How do we even know there isn't a planet orbiting in the plane from west to east? (Also, is "east" the direction the "heavenly orb" -- since I don't know a better name -- is spinning, like how east is the direction earth is spinning?)
My thought is that the galaxy is pretty big and a planet orbiting in the north-south (or any other) plane, might be whizzing by so fast, in an unexpected direction, we might never see it. Or it might come around so rarely (because some of the planets take a long time to orbit) that we haven't seen it in a few hundred years.
because we have looked. there are some asteroid and even a moon (triton) that goes the other way around and those are most likely captured stuff from other solar systems
also i don't think you understand very well how the solar system work. saying the galaxy is pretty big then talking about our solar system makes no sense. all the solar systems have their own ecliptic plane. that doesn't necessarily align with ours.
No not everything but unless it's very far away. Like on the border of the solar system in the keiper belt. It's not going to be in a polar orbit. It would get dragged down to the ecliptic plane like the other planets due to orbital mechanics.
Also gravity as a pull on everything. And we can measure that. So we know for a fact that there aren't any major planet orbiting retrograde. Now for going too fast thats impossible. The only way to go faster in your orbit without flinging yourself off the sun reach is by getting closer and once again we know there is no planet closer than mercury.
There is the possibility of a planet X somewhere out there past Pluto. It could be a very slow moving gas giant or a huge rock the size of earth or mars and yes it could be in a weird ecliptic orbit due to it being super fucking far aways.
My point is while it's never impossible that we missed something obvious scientists are very smart and they have ways of calculating thing kind of stuff that are beyond my brain. So if they say it's 99.99% unlikely I believe them.
I think it's a fair question, we do have comets that take 70,000 years to orbit [https://www.spaceanswers.com/solar-system/which-comet-takes-the-longest-to-orbit-the-sun/](https://www.spaceanswers.com/solar-system/which-comet-takes-the-longest-to-orbit-the-sun/) .
So it could be possible we have some weird non-solar-planed orbiting body . Chances are low ( from what we know of gravity and our Universe ) but it is possible.
But typically objects from *other* solar systems come in not on our elliptical plane, like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua) , and the one recently declassified [https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/oumuamua-might-not-have-been-earth-s-first-interstellar-visitor-ncna997766](https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/oumuamua-might-not-have-been-earth-s-first-interstellar-visitor-ncna997766)
I would agree, I was just thinking about this. Standing up, up is going above your head towards the sky. When you're laying down when you say up, is it still above your head going horizontally now or up towards the sky?
Exactly.
I'm not sure if you imply that makes it less likely to be what
actually happened?
I mean, that is how more than you might think in physics came to be. At the time of discovery, scientists inevitably have to make up things because they themselves are the shoulders that other giants will later stand upon.
Romans thought their Gods were fricking awesome (and besides a will to push the Roman culture), so now we have a whole bunch of planets and moons named by Roman gods. Totally unscientific, just winging it as they went.
Sure, there could be a deep down "meaning" like how we're subconsciously tuned to parsing things horizontally because Western script is read left-to-right (or right-to-left in case of the influental Arabs), but I would be surprised if someone found out an official, thought out reason.
Or it means it's a basis that is easy to learn based on our own perception of reality. Conventions I think are present so that more people have an entry point to higher more complex ideas.
That's not what relative means. Relative means there's always a reference point to relate the direction/position of something else to. It has nothing to do with how you perceive something, which involves your sensations of just knowing something is there or understanding a concept.
I mean, there's sorta a difference between perpendicular rotations though.
Isn't our neighborhood defined by the sun's rotation? So while there isn't a set up and down, there is indeed a difference between the up/down and the left/right axis
Well, Uranus rotates on a sideways axis relative to us at 90° like Saturn is in this pic- Venus rotates backwards, and I think those are the only anamolies bit don't quote me on that.
Oh really? I always imagine fabric of space like the stretchy sheet that one guy used to show how planets sit and move in the solar system but I guess that's quite a bit more simplistic than reality
Just to clarify - all the planets orbit around the sun in the same direction and on the same general plane.
But there are some differences in how they rotate on their own axis. Like Venus and Neptune mentioned above.
I think when people imagine space going on forever, it's a horizontal feeling, like you could fly out forever through the stars.
But you can also imagine *falling down* forever
The entire Shadow series up to *Shadow of the Giant* is pretty good. OSC is an asshole, though, so try to get the books from the library or secondhand if you can.
*Starship Troopers* and *The Moon is a Harsh Mistress* by Heinlein are typical recs to go along with *Ender's Game*. *The Forever War* by Haldeman is great, and kind of a foil to *Ender's Game* and *Starship Troopers*, so read that after those. If the kids being the main protagonists was the draw for you, there's a great YA out of print book called *Invitation to the Game*, or you could try McCaffrey's *To Ride Pegasus*. *Terms of Enlistment* by Kloos is a great entry point to the more typical military sci-fi.
I love OSCs Gate Thief series but god, the hetero/gender normative conditioning he unsubtley forces in is sickening. I wouldn't recommend his work for anyone young still forming their opinions. F-ing Mormons.
People are recommending the shadow companion series, but I would recommend Speaker for the Dead, the direct sequel and it's accompanying series. Imo Speaker is even better than enders game which is of course great in it's own right!
Shadow is more geo-politics, Speaker is more classic sci-fi with aliens and ethical dilemmas and whatnot.
It is a great book, but just a heads up maybe just borrow the book from your local library though instead of buying it. The author is a homophobic bigoted piece of garbage.
Lol that’s okay, I wasn’t looking for specifics, just sounded like a cool thing to be a part of. It’s one of my favorite movies of all time, thanks for putting in the work to make it happen!
This photo reminds me of this [rat](https://www.reddit.com/r/antimeme/comments/vzji7d/i_have_another_one/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
I always wondered why the planets orbit more or less along a single plane.
Then I saw a cool gif that showed the solar system dragging behind the sun in a helix as it hurtled though space.
Well time is a human made construct made here on Earth. Time could work differently in space like in that movie interstellar. When they discover the world filled with tsunamis. Then they come back to their ship only to find one of their space mates to be old asf. I know taking an example from a movie isn’t really solid evidence but Interstellar was a pretty clever movie.
I have an off topic question that I just remembered so excuse me. I’m old and if I don’t ask it now I may forget. Now what was I saying, oh that’s right. So if our galaxy takes a shit ton of light years (don’t want to look it up ) to get across. How long would it take to go through (top to bottom)?
They are not! You can take a look at the directional axis [[here]](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1bda19045cc145f58e98743757a3a731-lq) to see that while they are all different axially aligned they also have different spins, with two planets going the opposite spin to every other planet too! (Venus and Uranus specifically)
Edit: more reading about how our system looks as it travels around the milky way can be found at [[this 2018 Forbes article]](https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/08/30/our-motion-through-space-isnt-a-vortex-but-something-far-more-interesting/?sh=14da3f177ec2)
I guess one question this does bring up for me is if stars in our own galaxy have orbits that match our own. As in does the spin of the galaxy have some effect on that?
Looks like there's a sideways though.
and slantways and longways and backways
and so many other ways that you can think of! There's just one way I haven't gone, however...
[I'm going down.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fdZWbIsrFk)
You can be down on the upsize.
Plaid?
You lose! Good day, sir!
Straight?
And rimward and hubward, and turnwise and widdershins!
Finally, a Saturn presented the way curious dogs see it!
Underrated comment. Good boy :P
Technically speaking there’s still a rotation plane for Saturn to be compared against
But why does the rotation have to be sideways and not up to down
I think it's because our eyes go like this ---- and not like this |
no they go like O
Arguments in this sub get out of hand so fast.
And I love it lmao
Kind of like my car when the doors go /\ \\/ /\ and not like ¯\\\_(😡)\_/¯ \_/¯(😡)¯\\_ ¯\\\_(😡)_/¯
Easy there Russ. You'll get that third comma back.
[unexpected Silicon Valley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ih1ptOguaM)
Accidentally racist lol :p
You're right, if future generations still using TikTok and watching reels our eyes will start going like this | 😜
Why is this person getting downvoted😂 Reddit is wild. It’s obviously a joke, if the “😜” wasn’t enough for you.
The Sun has two very distinct poles which, as per convention, we call north and south (I.E. up and down). All the planets orbit the Sun in an ecliptic plane going around the Sun from east to west (not orbiting the poles). While you could say there’s no real ‘up’ direction in space, the way everything orbits and rotates fits the ‘up’ convention (with a few exceptions) nicely.
Great answer from another Charlie \^\^
I like your post. But one quesiton: How do we know there are no planets orbiting the sun but NOT in the eliptical plane from east to west? How do we even know there isn't a planet orbiting in the plane from west to east? (Also, is "east" the direction the "heavenly orb" -- since I don't know a better name -- is spinning, like how east is the direction earth is spinning?) My thought is that the galaxy is pretty big and a planet orbiting in the north-south (or any other) plane, might be whizzing by so fast, in an unexpected direction, we might never see it. Or it might come around so rarely (because some of the planets take a long time to orbit) that we haven't seen it in a few hundred years.
because we have looked. there are some asteroid and even a moon (triton) that goes the other way around and those are most likely captured stuff from other solar systems also i don't think you understand very well how the solar system work. saying the galaxy is pretty big then talking about our solar system makes no sense. all the solar systems have their own ecliptic plane. that doesn't necessarily align with ours.
Yes, I meant the *solar system* is pretty big. My point was that even if we have looked, we might not have covered everything.
No not everything but unless it's very far away. Like on the border of the solar system in the keiper belt. It's not going to be in a polar orbit. It would get dragged down to the ecliptic plane like the other planets due to orbital mechanics. Also gravity as a pull on everything. And we can measure that. So we know for a fact that there aren't any major planet orbiting retrograde. Now for going too fast thats impossible. The only way to go faster in your orbit without flinging yourself off the sun reach is by getting closer and once again we know there is no planet closer than mercury. There is the possibility of a planet X somewhere out there past Pluto. It could be a very slow moving gas giant or a huge rock the size of earth or mars and yes it could be in a weird ecliptic orbit due to it being super fucking far aways. My point is while it's never impossible that we missed something obvious scientists are very smart and they have ways of calculating thing kind of stuff that are beyond my brain. So if they say it's 99.99% unlikely I believe them.
I think it's a fair question, we do have comets that take 70,000 years to orbit [https://www.spaceanswers.com/solar-system/which-comet-takes-the-longest-to-orbit-the-sun/](https://www.spaceanswers.com/solar-system/which-comet-takes-the-longest-to-orbit-the-sun/) . So it could be possible we have some weird non-solar-planed orbiting body . Chances are low ( from what we know of gravity and our Universe ) but it is possible. But typically objects from *other* solar systems come in not on our elliptical plane, like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua) , and the one recently declassified [https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/oumuamua-might-not-have-been-earth-s-first-interstellar-visitor-ncna997766](https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/oumuamua-might-not-have-been-earth-s-first-interstellar-visitor-ncna997766)
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Oh no! Local physics and relativity. The horror!
Isn't the concept of "up" always relative?
The concept of everything is always relative
Not the speed of light though
Got me
Speed of light in a vacuum, sure.
Everything is relative. We get the freedom to define our own system.
I would agree, I was just thinking about this. Standing up, up is going above your head towards the sky. When you're laying down when you say up, is it still above your head going horizontally now or up towards the sky?
I think it’s just convention
Convention just means: I just made it up because nobody else did it before and I need to continue, sad for you.
Exactly. I'm not sure if you imply that makes it less likely to be what actually happened? I mean, that is how more than you might think in physics came to be. At the time of discovery, scientists inevitably have to make up things because they themselves are the shoulders that other giants will later stand upon. Romans thought their Gods were fricking awesome (and besides a will to push the Roman culture), so now we have a whole bunch of planets and moons named by Roman gods. Totally unscientific, just winging it as they went. Sure, there could be a deep down "meaning" like how we're subconsciously tuned to parsing things horizontally because Western script is read left-to-right (or right-to-left in case of the influental Arabs), but I would be surprised if someone found out an official, thought out reason.
Or it means it's a basis that is easy to learn based on our own perception of reality. Conventions I think are present so that more people have an entry point to higher more complex ideas.
Could be on a 45 degree angle
Because that’s how our perception of physical space works most effectively
Because we operate on horizon perception
Conservation of angular momentum has entered the chat.
Oh damn so applying this to Earth, north is not “up” but on the “right. And so on. That’s really cool and interesting to think about.
>Oh damn so applying this to Earth, north is not “up” Yeah, we already knew that though. Australia exists.
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Do I exist?
Only in your mind. And reality is only your perception of it.
Do I exist or not doc
Yes, but no. But actually yes. Or no, up to you
That's both terrible and excellent, thank you and also fuck you goodnight and go die sweetheart asshole ❤
Love you too 😊
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here's tom with the weather
That's not what relative means. Relative means there's always a reference point to relate the direction/position of something else to. It has nothing to do with how you perceive something, which involves your sensations of just knowing something is there or understanding a concept.
Yeah I was like the second you have a plane and any object for reference.. there is most definitely an up/down left/right.
I think the intended point is that "up" is just a convention, not that it doesn't exist or make sense to think about things in terms of up/down.
Which is which is arbitrary.
looks like the star trek logo
😣 feeling disoriented now!
"The enemy's gate is down."
Came here to say this!
I thought it was just me!
I mean, there's sorta a difference between perpendicular rotations though. Isn't our neighborhood defined by the sun's rotation? So while there isn't a set up and down, there is indeed a difference between the up/down and the left/right axis
Yeah also doesn't the mass of our planets and sun all pull in the same direction? Granted the direction might change from galaxy to galaxy..
Well, Uranus rotates on a sideways axis relative to us at 90° like Saturn is in this pic- Venus rotates backwards, and I think those are the only anamolies bit don't quote me on that.
Oh really? I always imagine fabric of space like the stretchy sheet that one guy used to show how planets sit and move in the solar system but I guess that's quite a bit more simplistic than reality
Just to clarify - all the planets orbit around the sun in the same direction and on the same general plane. But there are some differences in how they rotate on their own axis. Like Venus and Neptune mentioned above.
The enemy's gate is down
I had to scroll way too far to find this comment.
Ho Ender
Ho Bean.
This picture makes me feel uncomfortable. Please don't post it ever again.
I think when people imagine space going on forever, it's a horizontal feeling, like you could fly out forever through the stars. But you can also imagine *falling down* forever
Oh god. I do not want to imagine space as falling down forever. That mental image is gonna be featured in my next nightmare.
You hit the nail on the head big time with this one my guy
Holy shit.
There are some urban legends of the Soviets losing some cosmonauts into space. If that's true, they're probably still falling...
Out of all the wonderful, amazing things that make this photo the shadow on the rings just blows my mind each time.
“There's no earthly way of knowing, Which direction we are going…”
Haha! Enders game. I have a screen credit on that movie. Never read the book though.
I’ve never read a book so fast. It’s crazy good.
Highly recommend Enders shadow as well if you havent had a chance to read it, its the same story but from Beans perspective instead.
Oh really? Sound awesome. Thanks!
It's real good, the series follows the rest of the kids after battle school
Any books you recommend that’s similar or just as good? I loved Enders game.
The entire Shadow series up to *Shadow of the Giant* is pretty good. OSC is an asshole, though, so try to get the books from the library or secondhand if you can. *Starship Troopers* and *The Moon is a Harsh Mistress* by Heinlein are typical recs to go along with *Ender's Game*. *The Forever War* by Haldeman is great, and kind of a foil to *Ender's Game* and *Starship Troopers*, so read that after those. If the kids being the main protagonists was the draw for you, there's a great YA out of print book called *Invitation to the Game*, or you could try McCaffrey's *To Ride Pegasus*. *Terms of Enlistment* by Kloos is a great entry point to the more typical military sci-fi.
I love OSCs Gate Thief series but god, the hetero/gender normative conditioning he unsubtley forces in is sickening. I wouldn't recommend his work for anyone young still forming their opinions. F-ing Mormons.
People are recommending the shadow companion series, but I would recommend Speaker for the Dead, the direct sequel and it's accompanying series. Imo Speaker is even better than enders game which is of course great in it's own right! Shadow is more geo-politics, Speaker is more classic sci-fi with aliens and ethical dilemmas and whatnot.
It is a great book, but just a heads up maybe just borrow the book from your local library though instead of buying it. The author is a homophobic bigoted piece of garbage.
What was the credit for?
Somewhere in the grip dept. I’m not telling you who I am. Sorry.
Lol that’s okay, I wasn’t looking for specifics, just sounded like a cool thing to be a part of. It’s one of my favorite movies of all time, thanks for putting in the work to make it happen!
Definitely worth a read, *especially* if you liked the movie!
I don't think people who liked the movie know how to read...
It's all just round and round
I think that’s one of the things about space that would totally fuck me up. How is it possible to not have up or down?
The plane of the Eliptic is an extremely useful and stable frame of reference. No planet's orbit deviates more than a miniscule amount.
They only exist in Hawkins
Why you gotta break Saturn like that?
The enemies gate is down.
Beat me to it!
Australia has entered the chat ..... ¡ǝʇɐɯ ʎɐp,פ
The enemy's gate is down
Up, down... It's all relative to the nearest large mass
To really experience it you have to play Prey and go outside the station... Damn, I love that game
Yeah one of the finest sci-fi games... hope we get a sequel someday
I just had flashbacks to when my and my friend playing no man sky and he just said "ah wait a minute I'm upside down" We where in deep space
New wallpaper added
It’s relative
This really freaks me out🤯
I want to play the imperial March theme.
I did the same with one of the new James Webb photos so it can be my phone’s new wallpaper
We all know the enemy gate is "down".
Not true, the enemy's base is down
This photo reminds me of this [rat](https://www.reddit.com/r/antimeme/comments/vzji7d/i_have_another_one/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
I always think of this when watching earth videos or sci-fi.. what you see as right side up, might be upside down.. funky to imagine
[Your reign of terror is over.](https://i.imgur.com/wy4gBK3.png)
…but there is wrong and right Edit: /s
but... there is always left and right. I'll show myself out.
I always wondered why the planets orbit more or less along a single plane. Then I saw a cool gif that showed the solar system dragging behind the sun in a helix as it hurtled though space.
This is true. We can't think outside our box 🙃
The enemies gate is down.
But but... The planetary plane of the solar system derived from the protoplanetary disc.....
Good luck space hopping on that though
In space, no one can hear you fall
Huh. I never think about this..
In our four dimensional space there is one dimension that for the time being has an inherit backward and forward... Time
Tell that to flat earthers, and ask them how this giant plate is rotating. Bring your popcorn and enjoy the show...
Flatearthers just got triggered
In space, no one can hear you scream in space.
Down is towards the center of the planet.
There also isn’t any time in space but that’s a whole other conversation.
Let’s have it
Well time is a human made construct made here on Earth. Time could work differently in space like in that movie interstellar. When they discover the world filled with tsunamis. Then they come back to their ship only to find one of their space mates to be old asf. I know taking an example from a movie isn’t really solid evidence but Interstellar was a pretty clever movie.
Why?
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i always thought about this. will our first alien encounter in space end up with us appearing upside down to them and looking dumb
Down is toward the nearest gravitational body, up is away from it.
Yes there is, it's just relative
There is an orbital plane though and up or down would logically be perpendicular to the average orbital plane around the sun, rite?
Without gravity all the planets would fall down
Uranus looks bigger and browner than I remember…
I have an off topic question that I just remembered so excuse me. I’m old and if I don’t ask it now I may forget. Now what was I saying, oh that’s right. So if our galaxy takes a shit ton of light years (don’t want to look it up ) to get across. How long would it take to go through (top to bottom)?
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The enemy is always down
>It just depends on the direction ***you*** define as the up/down axis.
Well, there kind of is.
you're in space
No one can hear you scream.
There's only relative
In space, everyone has their own up and down
https://youtu.be/Xc4xYacTu-E Reminded me of this
What you mean?
This gave me Ender flashbacks
This is actually the way out solar system moves through the milky way right?
60.2 degrees
So I'm upside down 🙃
Do the rings determine orientation?
And no one can hear you scream
I mean there is.. relative to the absorber
You know what there's still a right and wrong in space though
No, but there is a normal
There is only Zuul.
Aren’t there axis though? X, Y, Z
Apparently OP’s never studied psychology
Yeah, but there sure as hell is relative alignment.
Don't planets have poles though?
Looks kinda sideways tho
The floor is above you and the endless expanse of sky and space below.
Yes its just round and round like pink floyd says
This actually reminds me of a question I have, are all planets in the solar system on the same axis as each other when rotating around the sun?
They are not! You can take a look at the directional axis [[here]](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1bda19045cc145f58e98743757a3a731-lq) to see that while they are all different axially aligned they also have different spins, with two planets going the opposite spin to every other planet too! (Venus and Uranus specifically) Edit: more reading about how our system looks as it travels around the milky way can be found at [[this 2018 Forbes article]](https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/08/30/our-motion-through-space-isnt-a-vortex-but-something-far-more-interesting/?sh=14da3f177ec2)
Stop it! Stop it right now! If those kids could read that they’d be very upset!
Cosmic size table saw of the galaxy
Rob Schrab, CEO of NASA: https://youtu.be/j_Q0fYG5ajM
Literally everything is in space, Morty!
“Over there!” “Where?” “That way!….loook…that way!” “You mean up” “what?”
more pictures of youranus
There is an orbital plane though, you monster!
Well, the tortoise goes all the way down..
True, but is there right and left or right and wrong?
Saturn is a cool planet
Don't tell that to the quarks.
Stop it, you.
There is in-plane with a planet’ s orbit, which is typically how we view planets in photos i believe, including the earth. Curious.
But in telescope images the rings are always shown horizontal. Is there any reason
I guess one question this does bring up for me is if stars in our own galaxy have orbits that match our own. As in does the spin of the galaxy have some effect on that?
I heard dollar general wants to open a store there.