Sunday, June 1, 2008

Why our solar system is flat

From the Earth's perspective in late May and into June, the Sun lies along a line of sight to the constellation Taurus. Earlier in the year, the Sun would have appeared in Aries. As the Earth proceeds in its orbit around the Sun (counterclockwise in this picture), the line of sight will point to Gemini, off the left side of the image. Of the imaginary coordinate lines that astronomers and navigators use in mapping the sky, perhaps the most important one is the ecliptic, the apparent path the sun appears to take through the sky as a result of the Earth's revolution around it.




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