I tried Google, but it wasn’t being very helpful, so I will try here.
What is above/below our solar system? I know that the planets do go up and down on their axes, but under the entire solar system, what is directly above/below us. Satellites, drones, and rocket ships seem to always be going out, but never directly up or down. When I googled this, I got told that below us was a vacuum, but all of space is a vacuum. All in all, I’m just very confused and would like some human explanation.
Thank you.
Edit: I love how many knowledgable people there are on this sub, thanks for all the answers!
In: Earth Science
Within our solar system, not much. Almost all of the matter in our solar system is roughly along the ecliptic. That’s the roughly but not quite flat plane that the planets and asteroids are in. Beyond that, there’s the Oort cloud, which is a sphere of comets that surrounds our solar system, but that’s thousands of times more distant from us than Pluto.
Outside our solar system, there are other stars in every direction within our galaxy, and then other galaxies in all directions.
My understanding is that the universe as a whole is expanding as a giant sphere due to the big bang. Within that ever increasing sphere, you have clouds of galaxies, and within those galaxies you have solar systems. In our Sol system, most of the planets orbit on roughly the same plane, so it often gets shown as a flat CD looking thing. Based on that flat plane, there are other Solar systems and galaxies above, and below us with an unimaginable amount of nothingness and distance between.
That’s my understanding at least.
So above us are the constellations most of humanity sees from the northern hemisphere. Below us are the far lesser seen southern hemisphere constellations.
The north star remains nearly stationary in the sky because it is nearly directly where our planet’s north pole points during it’s orbit.
I’m assuming there are regular old stars above and below us, probably with their own systems of planets. Can’t really remember where in the arm of the galaxy we are or where our North pole points through it.
Apparently the closest star to us, Proxima Centauri, is 4 light-years away and too faint to be seen with the naked eye, so while there’s probably some asteroids or other celestial objects between us that’s still a lot of vacuum
There’s nothing really interesting above or below our orbital plane that is also close enough for study. There are stars but those are really far away. There are also some comets and asteroids, but we have easier to access ones in our orbital plane.
I’m editing this because it is wrong.
I apologies for the mis-information and appreciate being corrected.
You’re a spec on the surface of a pea, enclosed in a larger sphere (not really but run with it) that has objects strewn throughout in all directions.
Depending on the time of day, year, etc as the earth spins on its axis and orbits the sun as our galaxy spins on its own axis, “up” for you could point almost anywhere in the universe depending which way we’re facing…
The vid starts with earth and talks about all the objects in the sky and their relative positions. You can even get apps to do this now… pan around the universe.
The [oort cloud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud) isn’t aligned with the solar plane. (Leftover from the accretion disk too sparse to collide and congeal). So… a bunch of dust for quite a while. Past that, the random bits of hydrogen and stuff out in deep deep space. The space between stars is mostly empty. Well, emptier than solar systems. There’s probably a few rogue planets and such.
Within the Oort cloud, but above or below the solar plane (that is, not along the path of the planets), there’s a whole lot of nothing. Vacuum. Empty space. Probably even emptier than anything else as the sun sucks in stuff and the planets throw off any orbits.
…and it looks like the solar system isn’t aligned with the plane of the galaxy with those big spiral arms. We’re 63-degrees off. So our sun’s “up” and “down” are… kinda going sideways into or out of the galaxy.
OH! There’s solar winds. All the stuff the sun is ejecting. And sunlight, like everywhere else.
Imagine a large sphere, with our solar system at the centre. The radius of the sphere is the distance to the nearest solar system to ours. The nearest star.
Above us is is all the stars, solar systems, etc in the upper hemisphere of this sphere, along with all those extended outward from it.
Below us, all the stars etc extended outward from the lower hemisphere.
Upper/lower is arbitrarily drawn along the general orbital plane of our solar system.
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