It is not difficult to understand the motion of the planets around the sun even before modern graphics and images many ancient civilizations tracked the wandering bright points in the sky around our start but where is our star moving in the galaxy a simple answer would be we are rotating around the center however a better answer is not easily found online especially after twenty eleven when I
Bex discovered the nose of our son's heliosphere the magnetic bubble around our solar system in a critically unfortunate error the group determined that the nose of the sun's magnetic field must be pointed in the sun's direction of motion through the galaxy not unlike the nose of a bow shock out ahead of a ship or a supersonic jet The problem is that isn't how electromagnetism and kinetic motion interact and we're talking about the sun's magnetic field and its motion in the galaxy Furthermore the center of the galaxy isn't Sagittarius toward Scorpio and indeed it makes sense that the Galactic version of the solar wind is coming from near the center of the galaxy so the nose of the magnetic field makes sense but is the sun moving towards the center of the Galaxy two or are we moving around it this clearly doesn't make sense outside of the magnetic nose which absolutely should point at where the galactic wind is coming from but we're not falling into the center of the galaxy we're rotating around it and just like the earth where the nose of our magnetosphere points at the sun but we don't move towards the sun we move around it we see the same the ionic an electromagnetic comet interaction the nose and tail that stream opposite in a way don't point on the line it travels it points aligned with the electromagnetic powerhouse it's orbiting So just like the earth and comets interact with the solar wind the sun interacts with the wind amidst the stars and points in that direction but it's the magnetism not the direction it's moving so let's refocus back on something that might help. Bus out try to use what we do know about where we should be looking ahead in our rotational pathway to figure out where in the sky we might want to look if we want to just go outside and take a peek at the stars it will be critical to understand that if we are looking at the center of the galaxy and our line of sight and bottom right there in the corner basically have to come all the way over about sixty degrees or more to see our general pathway now it was just one year later that this graphic was released by NASA now I've sumed in to show some detail but what I cut off was the indicator that the center of the galaxy is directly off to the right the yellow arrow makes much more sense now if indeed our rotation is around the galaxy in that way and there is one other important thing in Nasa's two thousand and twelve graphic that can be very helpful
Alpha Centauri down there and slightly to the right if you can use some spatial reconfiguring inside your head to consider how this will look from the Sun's point of view the sun is looking directly at the center of the galaxy the Alpha Centauri system should be off to the right as we are moving generally to the left we already know the center of the galaxies in Sagittarius and the Alpha Centauri system happens to be found in the constellation Centaurus sort of obvious from the name and it actually is part of the primary constellation So just using the basic viewer at solar system scope dot com Sagittarius isn't on there but it's next to Scorpio as you hopefully recall from a minute ago over to the right below Mars in Centaurus but Alpha is actually at the leg near the top of it from this perspective so put it about there which means we have to look to the left and what immediately jumps out in that general direction is the Water Carrier better known as Aquarius Let's check this on a proper star map center of the galaxy in this area here Sagittarius and Scorpio underlined just where it is supposed to be Centaurus is over there to the right. So perhaps Aquarius was not such a bad guess now in reality we travel up and down through the galactic plane to if you wanted a good range of Bob and below the galactic plane of where we're heading I look as far south as Aquarius and as far north as Hercules or Draco but not much at all side to side it is worth noting that it is believed we are above the galactic plane and actually heading a bit further north of it which points more at the Hercules and Draco direction perhaps Ignace Now this is true in every season and will be true for thousands of years until the stars motions in the heavens change the very appearance of the constellations themselves so perhaps now we have a better answer to
Where is the sun going down a simple around the galaxy we can peg the general direction and even some of the constellations that may be in the line in part two of where are we going we will answer this question from another perspective one that changes much more quickly and has a practical effect on our daily lives.
