Susan Fensten

We were taught that Earth orbits the Sun in a closed circle. In reality, Earth has never returned to the same point in space once in 4.5 billion years. ​Right now, the Sun is carrying Earth and every planet around the center of the Milky Way at 230 km/s (828,000 km/h), more than 18,000 kilometers every 80 seconds. ​Because the Solar System is tilted 60.2° to the galactic plane and bobs up and down through the galactic disc roughly every 30 million years, the planets trace open 3D corkscrew helices across deep space rather than flat loops. ​The last time the Sun stood where it stands today, one Galactic Year (230 million years) ago, the very first dinosaurs were only beginning to appear on Earth. Since forming 4.6 billion years ago, our Sun has completed only 20 laps.