I think that all our planets orbit the sun on basically the same plane. I imagine an old 45 record player, the sun in the middle and all the planets around it. Now, if you were on a spaceship and traveling straight up, would you basically miss all the planets? I know, I know.....silly question.
2006-11-16 14:12:15 · 5 answers · asked by pkubota@sbcglobal.net 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Not at all. You are correct the plance you are talking about is called the ecliptic plane. almost all the planets fall on the ecliptic plane (to within a few degrees anyway, all but pluto but it's not a planet anymore) . You would still have to dodge asteroids, comets and other things by going 90 degrees to the ecliptic but they are fairly rare.
2006-11-16 14:17:27 · answer #1 · answered by Scott L 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
First of all, I always thought there were no "silly questions" at least until I arrived here!
I do believe yours to be sincere and honest! I do not profess to be, in any way, an authority in the matter I'm about to comment.
Your understanding of our little part of the universe seems to be, two dimensional. Yes the sun is in centre, just like the little disc in your 45, but the similarity ends there.
Picture a perfectly round light bulb, magically suspended within and at the centre glass football, albeit more rounded but of the shape. Imagine now, the air hole for that football being a minute little round pimple, randomly placed upon the skin of the football.
Now lets imagine, as we done with our light bulb, doing with first football again and again until we nine footballs in all. The surfaces of one never touching the other. Take all ten and magically support them within a perfectly round glass sphere. Call this the eleventh sphere it represents the rest of the universe...
Are you with me thus far? Fine, lets go back to the third football. That, the third round air pimple, is earth, the third rock from the sun.
Lets, imagine it encased as the sun was, in two more round glass spheres the first is filled with smoke to simulate the atmosphere, the second is filled with 20000 grains of "free floating" black pepper to simulate space debris and satelites etc.
Finally, imagine the sun spinning fairly fast, then the first football doing likewise and the second through to ninth doing the same.
Place yourself upon that third pimple again, see yourself sitting in your space ship. All the while the eleventh sphere is riding down a water slide at a park. Then and only then "BLAST OFF" and good luck!
I don't know how well, I painted the mental picture for you, but I'm sure, there is more to it! Especially when your depending upon 2 or 3 million manufactured pieces and more computations to keep you safe on your journey...
Everything we know, see and touch is at least four dimensional, when you consider time, the elastic membrane ever stretching and contracting, Time is the glue that holds it all together, for all I know gravity, is but an ingredient of time...
Bon voyage...
2006-11-16 23:22:39 · answer #2 · answered by diSota 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you travel away from the plane of the solar system in a perpendicular line? Yup...you'd miss them alright. Hopefully you'll have enough propulsion to keep it from falling right back towards the sun....one of things that keeps spaceships and probes moving away is the gravity of the outer lying planets. Leave the plane of the solar system, and you won't have that benefit.
2006-11-16 22:31:54 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, not only would you miss the planets, you'd miss most of the galaxy as well, since we also lie in the plane of rotation of the Milky Way Galaxy
2006-11-16 22:30:06 · answer #4 · answered by arbiter007 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Your explanation sounds correct
2006-11-16 22:20:00 · answer #5 · answered by rscanner 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋