Orbiting Black hole or Brown Dwarf?

Question

I saw a BBC documentary, which showed that our solar system rises and falls along the galactic plane, like the motion of a horse on a merry go round. So what is that cyclic motion 'tethered' to? Is our Solar system orbiting a black hole? A Brown Dwarf maybe(like Nemesis?) Is there a common accepted answer to this in the scientific community?

The solar system wouldnt be 'tethered' to the black hole in the center of the galaxy...it would be something on the outer fringes of the galaxy. I'm not talking about a black hole affecting the entire galaxy. Just our solar system.
To clarify, If the Galaxy was a merry-go-round, our solar system spins around on the outside on the plane of the disc, but it also rises above the disc, and dips into the disc.
I saw this on a documentary called "Hyperspace" with Sam Niell from Jurassic Park.

Also, the context of the information in the documentary was actually relating to comets. It was saying that as the solar system dips down, back into the more densly populated areas of the galactic plane, proximity to other stars cause comets and debris to be dislodged from the oort cloud.

By the way, I know about the black hole at the center of the galaxy already...and it's not what I'm asking about.

The 'orbit' I'm concerned with is the up and down rotation on the edge of the disk...as in is there a seperate black hole out here near us on the galactic disc, which we orbit around in an up and down manner? Aside from the obvious rotation around the disk.

Answer 1

Well the solar system is about midway between the center of the galaxy and it's outer edge. I'd suggest that things nearer than the center or the outer edge would have the most influence on the solar system's movement relative to the galactic plane.
For example, the spiral arms of the galaxy may have enough mass -- in numbers of stars and objects such as brown dwarfs and black holes -- to have a strong push/pull on the solar system. The solar system is located between two sprial arms - the Perseus Arm, and the Sagittarius Arm. Technically, astronomers are calling our local space a "sub-arm" called the Orion Arm.
Anything as vast as an arm of a galaxy could hold anywhere from thousands to millions of brown dwarfs. It is very likely that there are many brown dwarfs within 50 light years of the solar system.
I think astronomers would have noticed by now if there were a black hole nearby, but then again they can sometimes be quite small, theoretically.
There is also the theory of "dark matter" since astrophysicists believe that it would take much more mass, to hold a galaxy together, than they have found.
One possible answer to where is this missing matter is that it is dark matter. Astronomers look for dark matter by looking a far-away stars over long periods of time. If dark matter was to pass between the observer and a far away star, evidence would be detectable, even if it were somehow invisible or even transparent in the visible light spectrum.
In an astronomy class I remember my teacher saying there is a theory that most of the undiscovered dark matter lies at the outer edge of galaxies -- this is similar I think to your speculation.
But probably the center of gravity our solar system orbits is simply the axis of the Orion sub arm.
I'm not a mathemetician, and I'm sure my answer isn't perfect, but thinking about it is more important to me than really knowing the answers -- they will only raise more questions, after all.

Answer 2

What happens is the sun goes above the galactic plane and is pulled down by the galaxy as a whole. Then it goes the same amount below the galactic plane and again is pulled up by the galaxy as a whole. So it's not a black hole or brown dwarf that the sun is orbiting but the galaxy itself acting on it as it revolves around the galaxy.

P.S. to hannuh_14. A brown drawf is not a sun that has died but rather an object whose mass is big enough to heat it by gravitational collapse but not enough mass to start a nuclear chain reaction like a full-fledged star. So it is very dark in telescopes and radiates infrared heat only. Thus they were named brown dwarfs because they are dark and smaller than a star.

Answer 3

It orbits God.. ;)

Lol I'm only kidding (obviously), to be honest I don't have a clue as to why it is like that.. Maybe its due to the universe being in a constant state of flux or something? There is of course a possibility the whole solar system orbits a gigantic mass such as a black hole/brown dwarf, but I have never heard this before.. It might be relatively easy to prove/disprove if its the case mind, by recording our position relative to the body of mass in question.

Prof Beatz might be onto something, if you spin a table tennis ball on still water it will bob up & down even if it remains in the same location/attached to something.

Answer 4

It doesn't need to orbit anything. It can orbit itself. If you have a bunch of mass drawn together, the conservation of angular momentum will result in spinning in the end, unless the net angular momentum is zero (which is about as improbable as a coin landing on end). I believe the consensus puts a black hole at the center of the galaxy, but that black hole isn't necessarily the tether that holds everything together--the galaxy can spin about its center of mass just fine without a black hole.

A brown dwarf is way, way too small to have any real impact on the galaxy at large.

Edit: to the above poster, a brown dwarf is a dead star. When a comparably small star dies, the bulk of its mass is converted to iron (or similar elements) and there's no fuel left to burn in fusion reactions. When the star dies, it will initially glow white-hot. This is a white dwarf. In time, it will cool, and the lack of fusion prevents further generation of heat/light. In time, as it cools down, it is known as a brown dwarf.

Answer 5

Gravitational lensing occurs whilst there is a few thing particularly vast in area and the sunshine from gadgets in the back of that's bent around it and then reaches us. curiously to be a circle or area of a circle. that's one thank you to locate black holes.

Answer 6

there is a black hole at the center of every galaxy, if you don't believe me look it up

didn't you ask what the solar system is orbiting, it's orbiting a black hole and if you know this why are you asking this question.

Answer 7

What is a brown dwarf