It’s not hanging there. It, along with the whole solar system is moving at over 150,000 mph orbiting the galactic center. The Galaxy itself is moving at far greater speed for an eventual collision with Andromeda. Everything is in motion relative to everything else.
@newjaninev2 That's funny. I thought North was defined according to the direction of rotation around the sun -- in other words, an abstract definition which coincided well enough with a magnetic north with the direction of a compass. My understanding is that the magnetic poles of the Earth can switch, and have done, as evidenced by the direction of magnetism in layers of volcanic rocks. I believe this is what I remember from school days.
If one says that there is no north, then by the same reasoning there would be no equator, longitude, latitude, clock-time, calendar, etc. These are all abstractions for the sake of orienting ourselves in space-time. Yet our sun always rises in what we call the east, and sets in our west, and our Milky Way appears to span our skies in the same direction. It's reliable enough that we can use trigonometry to find our way across our planet.
@hartfire exactly!The compass points, the Equator, latitude, longitude, etc. are nothing more than convenient fictions that help us find our way around this planet.
As you said, it’s reliable enough to be useful during our short lifetimes, and even during the evolutionary history of our species... but the dinosaurs looked up at a very different night sky.
Jupiter, a beautiful gas giant planet that can fit all the other planets inside it. I recall first seeing it through my telescope when I was twelve. It's held in its orbit like the other planets by the gravitational pull of our sun, named Sol.
@PatKirby I wonder what aliens call Earth and our Sun. I wonder if they call it Earth, Mercury, Venus, etc. Or what other names they might have for them.
No, I don't believe that every whack-a-doodle that says they saw an alien is telling the truth, but there has to be life on other planets, however far away that they may be.
I figure they probably give the sun a name and assign the planets a number beginning with the closest to the sun. With that notation the planets Mercury, Venus and Earth would be designated Sol 1, Sol 2 and Sol 3 respectively. Who knows, maybe there's intelligent life here in our own solar system. The joke goes - [i]well you don't see them spending billions and billions to [u]come over here[/u] (so they must be intelligent).[/i] But I digress, there are way too many stars containing planets in the universe capable of sustaining intelligent life, with an increasing amount discovered well within the habitable "Goldilocks zone." And according to the Drake Equation (SETI Institute)... [center]
...there's millions - specifically 15,600,000*. However if considering credible eye witness accounts, they describe having seen these...
Space is a vacuum, so there's no air for anything to hang in. Haven't you ever watched a space flight or a show about space, or read anything about it?
@RedBaron [quote]There is no such thing as air in space. That's why astronauts bring their own.[/quote]
When did I say that there is "air" in space? I said that there is a hydrogen atmosphere in space. And even though it is extremely thin it still exists well past Pluto. The planets that have gaseous atmospheres have "air envelopes" that extend miles far into space about their surfaces.
@newjaninev2 [quote]Which direction would be ‘down’. 😀[/quote]
"Down" is where the floor is. According to the Bible, the stars will fall to the Earth so that must mean that the Earth is the "floor" where everything in the universe will fall to.
