The Helical Model: Our Solar System is a Vortex

This interesting video gives an alternate view (which may be right or not, thoughts in the comments below?) of our solar system, showing the sun as a comet travelling through space with its planets orbiting around it just like they would in a vortex.

[DjSadhu | Via]

9 Responses to The Helical Model: Our Solar System is a Vortex

  1. Definitely a more exciting viewpoint but I doubt it actually makes any difference since all the planets are orbiting the galaxy at the same rate. Also the solar system is not moving in that direction – the animation would be more chaotic if shown with the plane of motion being at about 60 degrees to the plane of the solar system – planets would keep moving ahead of the star then falling behind.

  2. The choice of one reference frame over another is arbitrary according to relativity. Pick whatever you want as a reference point. So the argument that the solar system is a helix rather than a disc isn’t wrong, exactly, but neither is it absolute. Both are correct depending on your choice of reference.

    However, the argument that the solar system, because it is a helix, is part of life because helices are associated with life is ridiculous. There is no geometry that is always indicative of life. Some of the examples given in the very video itself are of inorganic phenomena, which demonstrates the inaccuracy of his point.

    • On the relativity point, the choice of frames of reference is not entirely arbitrary under Einstein’s general theory of relativity (though it is under Newtonian relativity) when any of the bodies is accelerating, which a body following a curved trajectory is.

      Imagine this: You stand in an open field at night under the stars. Let’s say one of those stars is on the horizon and 100 million light years away. You pirouette, turning around 360 degrees in one second of time. If the frame of reference were entirely arbitrary, then one could say that you pinning in a complete circle is identical to you standing still and the universe spinning around you. If that were the case, though that that star we identified at the horizon would have had to have moved 628.319 light years in one second, turning a circle around you, which Einsteinian relativity would not allow (as that is faster than the speed of light).

      That said, the notion that there is anything special about a helix is simply magical thinking. Helices appear in inorganic contexts as well as organic ones, in non-living materials as well as living beings.

  3. I can’t take seriously an astrophysics theory proposed by someone that doesn’t know the difference between rotation and revolution.

  4. This vortex illustration would only hold if the solar system were moving through the galaxy perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic. That is, with the sun’s pole (and the Earth’s and all the other planets) were pointing towards the direction of travel. Now, I’m only an amateur astronomer but looking at my little plenesphere it looks like the difference between the plane of the ecliptic (where the planets are orbiting) and the plane of the Milky Way, is something like 25 degrees, not the 90 degrees necessary for the video. Really, we are spinning around the galaxy more like a wobbly frisbee than a corkscrew. That kind of invalidates the whole vortexishness of the proposition.

  5. Pseudo-Science all the way.

    True that you can try and put “relativity” here to force this to be like that…But the point of observation to see that kind of “model” only exist in the mind of new age “phycisists” and the “conspiracies theories” lovers.

    Want more cool stuff? Search for “Electric Universe” theory and the “schwarzschild Proton” theory. Listen carefully the explanations. Then search for debunks on each. Then conclude..


  6. I was incorrect. I found a better planisphere image and some more information to figure out that the solar system is moving towards Vega, which is some 25 degrees off the pole of the ecliptic. So, while it is not moving like a corkscrew as is depicted in the video, is is more like that than the “wobbly frisbee” I first thought.

    More like but still not the same. The video clearly misrepresents our motion through the galaxy. A pretty picture, but not true.

    And that seems to be what a lot of woo is about. Pretty pictures. Good feelings. Platitudes that make it seem like we have some special place in the universe.

  7. Well, the Sun is moving that relative to what? The black hole at the center of the galaxy? because it’s not moving that fast if your on the sun…