I Just I came across an articular about the Great Attractor, an intergalactic point of huge mass, that no one can actually see, that everything supposedly moves towards. That started me wondering it this too could be an artifact or illusion caused by our PVP orbit, even though it is way beyond our solar system. Any ideas about it?
Dear MUU,
Please know that, apparently, what astronomers have been calling the “Great Attractor” has now been ‘superseded’ by something they are now calling the Shapley Supercluster. From Wikipedia:
“The Shapley Supercluster lies very close to the direction in which the Local Group of galaxies (including our galaxy) is moving with respect to the cosmic microwave background (CMB) frame of reference. This has led many to speculate that the Shapley Supercluster may indeed be one of the major causes of our galaxy’s peculiar motion - the Great Attractor may be another - and has led to a surge of interest in this supercluster. It has been found that the Great Attractor and all the galaxies in our region of the universe (including our galaxy, the Milky Way) are moving toward the Shapley Supercluster.”
Well, here’s how this “Shapley Supercluster” looks like:
As you can see - and once again - this looks very much like another binary system composed by one large star and a smaller one (surrounded by a bunch of planets and moons).
Now, here’s the thing: since our modern-day astronomers are still ‘out at sea’ regarding the very configuration, size and relative motions of our own little solar system (and thus, of our universe as a whole), it is rather pointless - in my honest opinion - to discuss any of their envisioned, long-term motions at ‘galactic scales’.
Let’s not discuss it then. 
thanks for the answer.
Years ago I came across the Wooden Book series, they had the marvelous Sun, Moon & Earth by Robin Heath and I felt that this was a good place to start, so I bought it. Just take a small bite, I thought, and get to know something of this ‘sub system’ I’m directly a part of.
Start from the centre and work outwards…
It intrigues me why men are always so fascinated by things that we cannot know from the timeline we are in right now, yet they are mesmerized by these things. That would be fine and dandy if the world under their noses wasn’t so darned grave. What point is there wondering about the cosmos when it’s being orchestrated right now for your demise and 90% of the world’s population? Do you think it would be fascinating learning about that stuff when everybody is dead and gone if you had the chance to have survived it? There is nothing more stupid to me that the idea we are intelligent and yet we kill our own kind and we still go around thinking we are intelligent.
Mr. Ward, aren’t you missing the point? ‘As above, so below’ means that the everyday world of your experience is very much affected by your understanding of the Solar System. Isn’t this the point of Simon’s work? Why else would The Tychos be so opposed by the astro community? I would have thought it was self-evident.
Don’t get me wrong I love this work. However my point is now that we know it so what? I have shared this amongst numerous people and they say nothing about it. To me it was a great discovery. The point I made is we need to attend to sorting out this world so we can then be free and free others to contribute to finding out more about the earth and the cosmos. We are living in amazing surroundings right now, but we know very little about it and even about our own body. It’s not as above so below either I feel, it is as below so above. And Simon’s finding that the moon is the drive shaft kind of underscores this view.
Well, it’s just ‘we few, we happy few, we band of brothers…’ who are gathered here. Personally, this is a great outcome for me. Who would have thought my humble beginnings would bring me to this glorious point- where I could look up at the night sky and ‘get it’…! and I, too, talk to my fellow human beings, I reach out but each is in his own ‘silo’, admiring its furnishings and draperies and unwilling to come out to humour his neighbour. No matter… we few.
What about your sisters?