Chapter 12 — Tilts, inclinations, obliquities & oscillations

The well-known notion of Earth’s so-called “axial tilt” is, of course, a fundamental requisite for the Copernican model to work, since Earth’s alleged obliquity is meant to account for our alternating seasons. The most popularly-held, yet academically-supported theory as to exactly why Earth’s axis would be skewed at an angle goes like this:

“When an object the size of Mars crashed into the newly formed planet Earth around 4.5 billion years ago, it knocked our planet over and left it tilted at an angle.”

What Is Earth’s Axial Tilt or Obliquity? (Time and Date)

You may be forgiven for raising your eyebrows at the above explanation which reeks of journalistic sensationalism à-la-The Discovery Channel. To be sure, Earth’s “axial tilt” ranks among the most sacrosanct axioms of (Copernican) astronomy. After all, if Earth were truly orbiting around the Sun, the only possible explanation for our seasons would be that its axis is tilted in relation to its orbital plane.

In the TYCHOS, Earth is also tilted at about 23° in relation to its orbital plane, yet with some notable differences: it is the Sun that revolves around Earth (and not vice versa), while our planet’s own orbital motion proceeds (over a full Great Year) with our Northern hemisphere tipping “outwards” (i.e.; towards the Sun’s external orbital path) at all times.

Interestingly, and for all the uncertainties afflicting modern astrophysics, it appears to be beyond dispute that our planet’s Northern hemisphere is much “heavier” than its Southern hemisphere. In any event, it is a notion seemingly agreed upon by both mainstream and dissident scientists alike:

“The northern hemisphere consists of the great land masses and higher elevations, from a mechanical aspect, the Earth is top heavy, the northern hemisphere must attract a stronger pull from the Sun than the southern hemisphere. This lack of uniformity should impact on the movements of the Earth.”

— p. 164, Big Bang or Big Bluff by Hans Binder (May 2011)

It would thus seem intuitively logical, even to devout Newtonian advocates, that Earth’s heavier part would hang “outwards” as our planet circles around its own orbit. Conversely, it is hard to fathom how Earth’s axis would maintain its fixed, peculiar inclination while circling around the Sun as of the heliocentric theory. Yet, one of the latter’s most problematic aspects has to be its proposed cause for the observed secular stellar precession and our alternating pole stars. As will be expounded in Chapter 18, the hypothesized retrograde “wobble” (or “third motion”) of Earth has been thoroughly disproved in recent years.

On the other hand, as illustrated in my next graphic, the TYCHOS provides an uncomplicated solution to account for the secular stellar precession and our ever-changing pole stars. The observed motions of our pole stars are simply caused by Earth’s slow, “clockwise” motion around what I have called the “PVP orbit” (Polaris-Vega-Polaris). Earth employs 25344 solar years to complete one PVP revolution. Our current Northern and Southern pole stars are Polaris and Sigma Octantis, but over time they will be replaced by other stars such as Vega (ca. 11,000 years from now) and Eta Columba (ca. 12,000 years).

The Sun’s “mysterious” 6 or 7 degree tilt

“It’s such a deep-rooted mystery and so difficult to explain that people just don’t talk about it.”

You may have never heard of it, but one of the most baffling mysteries in astronomy is the 6° (or 7°) tilt of the Sun — or, as some have it, what is tilted is the “plane of all of our planets’ orbits with respect to the Sun”.

Here’s more of my extract from an article on Astronomy.com musing about this still unexplained riddle:

“The Sun’s rotation was measured for the first time in 1850 and something that was recognized right away was that its spin axis, its north pole, is tilted with respect to the rest of the planets by 6 degrees. So even though 6 degrees isn’t much, it is a big number compared to the mutual planet-planet misalignments. So the Sun is basically an outlier within the solar system. This is a long-standing issue and one that is recognized but people don’t really talk much about it. Everything in the solar system rotates roughly on the same plane except for the most massive object, the Sun — which is kind of a big deal.”

Planet Nine may be responsible for tilting the Sun by Shannon Stirone (2016)

As a matter of fact, this tilt of the Sun’s rotation axis with respect to our ecliptic plane was known long before 1850; it was discovered by Christoph Scheiner back in the 1600’s during his extensive 20-year-long sunspot observations. His work was richly illustrated and published in his monumental treatise Rosa Ursina (1630).

“Scheiner, in his massive 1630 treatise on sunspots entitled ‘Rosa Ursina’, accepted the view of sunspots as markings on the solar surface and used his accurate observations, to infer the fact that the Sun’s rotation axis is inclined with respect to the ecliptic plane.”

1610: First telescopic observations of sunspots, Solar Physics Historical Timeline by UCAR/NCAR 2018

In the below illustration by Cristoph Scheiner, I have highlighted the -6 and + 6° inclinations of his observed sunspot transits in January and July.

Needless to say, this tilt is no trivial matter. It was and still is a crucial issue with regards to the entire heliocentrism-vs-geocentrism debate. In fact, the “sunspot-issue” triggered a bitter and infamous 30-year-long feud between Galileo and Christoph Scheiner (who, incidentally, was a staunch supporter of the Tychonic model).

To understand the importance of this issue, you will just have to ask yourself the following questions: “Why would the Sun or all of our planets’ orbits be tilted at 6° (or at any degree) to each other? Isn’t the Sun supposed to be a gigantic central mass around which all of our planets are revolving around? And if so, why then would our planets’ orbits not be co-planar with the Sun’s rotation around itself? Can Newtonian or Einstenian physics explain it?” The answer to this last question is a definite “No”.

Today, astronomers still refer to this six-degree tilt as a “deep-rooted mystery” as we can read on PHYS.org:

“All of the planets orbit in a flat plane with respect to the sun, roughly within a couple degrees of each other. That plane, however, rotates at a six-degree tilt with respect to the sun — giving the appearance that the sun itself is cocked off at an angle. Until now, no one had found a compelling explanation to produce such an effect. ‘It’s such a deep-rooted mystery and so difficult to explain that people just don’t talk about it‘, says Brown, the Richard and Barbara Rosenberg Professor of Planetary Astronomy.”

Curious tilt of the sun traced to undiscovered planet by California Institute of Technology (2016)

What is observed is that the Sun’s North Pole tips towards us in September and away from us in March.

“The Sun’s axis tilts almost 7.5 degrees out of perpendicular to Earth’s orbital plane. (The orbital plane of Earth is commonly called the ecliptic.) Therefore, as we orbit the Sun, there’s one day out of the year when the Sun’s North Pole tips most toward Earth. This happens at the end of the first week in September. Six months later, at the end of the first week in March, it’s the Sun’s South Pole that tilts maximumly towards Earth. There are also two days during the year when the Sun’s North and South Poles, as viewed from Earth, don’t tip toward or away from Earth. This happens at the end of the first week in in June, and six months later, at the end of the first week of December.”

The Tilt of the Sun’s Axis by Bruce McClure (June 2006)

In the TYCHOS model, those observed oscillations of the Sun may be plainly accounted for as follows – with no need for any elusive, yet-to-be-discovered planets. It is indeed remarkable how much of modern science appears to base its assumptions upon postulated, invisible matter — in other words, upon thin air!

In July and January, the sunspots (as documented by Christoph Scheiner) will be inclined as shown in my below diagram. The Sun’s North Pole will tip towards Earth in September and the Sun’s South pole will tip towards Earth in March.

Of course, we should now be curious to find out whether these “visual pole flips” of Mars and the Sun (as viewed from Earth) are in any way symmetrical or synchronized. Indeed, they are! Whenever Mars transits in opposition around a September equinox, Mars shows us more of its South pole, while the Sun shows us more of its North pole; whereas when Mars finds itself in opposition around a March equinox, this is inverted. The Sun and Mars truly appear to have a very special relationship of the “harmoniously-opposed” kind!

But there’s more. Around the September and March equinoxes, Venus and Mercury (our Sun’s two moons, as posited by the TYCHOS model) are observed to transit either “above” or “below” the Sun – that is, in relation to our line of sight. Venus, for instance, is seen passing “below” the Sun in September (by about -9° as it transits in perigee, i.e.; closest to Earth), whereas it is seen passing “above” the Sun (by about +9°) in March. This hefty 18° variation constitutes, all by itself, a spiny problem for the Copernican theory; as you can read in this NASA fact sheet, the inclination of Venus’ orbit in relation to Earth is currently claimed to be no more than 3.4°.

As VENUS transits in perigee in September, we will see VENUS about 9° below the Sun.

As VENUS transits in perigee in March, we will see VENUS about 9° above the Sun.

As it is, Mercury is also seen below and above the Sun in September and March (by ca. -3° and +3° respectively). In synthesis, we may conclude that the observational data empirically supports two core aspects of the TYCHOS model:

1: That the Sun and Mars are a binary pair of “cosmic dancers”, which even share symmetrical seasonal inclinations.
2: That Venus and Mercury are the moons of the Sun, both orbits of which are co-planar with the Sun’s celestial equator.

It should be noted that, when Earth’s axial tilt is added to the equation, the combined tilt angles (as viewed from Earth) of the Sun, according to a recent Australian study, will eventually register a maximum variation of 30.5°.

“The Sun’s tilt causes its poles to nod with respect to a terrestrial observer. Sometimes the north pole is just visible, and sometimes the south pole is visible. This changing angle in a plane toward and away from the observer is termed the B angle, and as expected, it varies from +7 to -7 degrees throughout an Earth year. In the plane of the sky ( the plane perpendicular to the observer’s line of sight), the solar axis appears to rotate back and forth throughout the year. The range of this angle, designated the P angle, is from -26 to +26 degrees. We might initially expect a P angle variation of +/- 30.5 degrees (23.5 + 7 ). However, the relative orientations of the Sun and the Earth at this time do not allow us to perceive this maximum variation, although over many centuries this will change.”

The Orientation of the Sun and Earth in Space by Australian Space Academy (2017)

As a brief anecdotal aside, it is interesting to note that Galileo (a vociferous crusader for the Copernican model) seemingly perceived Cristoph Scheiner’s sunspot observations as a threat to the heliocentric theory. Notoriously, Galileo engaged in fierce verbal battles with a number of astronomers of his time, often claiming priority over any new discoveries made with the aid of the telescope.

As Scheiner (outraged by Galileo’s accusations of plagiarism) decided to move from Ingolstadt to Rome in order to better defend his work, the bitter feud between Galileo and Scheiner turned ugly. You will have to read what that great man of science, Galileo, had to say about his German opponent whom he calls a “brute”, a “pig”, a “malicious ass”, a “poor devil” and a “rabid dog”!

On Sunspots
Translations of letters by Galileo Galilei and Christoph Scheiner, University of Chicago Press (2010)

You will thus have to forgive me for suspecting that Galileo (for reasons I won’t go into here) had ulterior motives other than advancing cosmological knowledge. In any case, his most acclaimed telescopic discoveries (the phases of Venus and the moons of Jupiter) did not contradict in any way the Tychonic model’s basic premises. To be sure, Galileo is known to have virtually ignored Tycho Brahe’s and Longomontanus’ work.

“After 1610, when Galileo engaged himself fully in astronomy and cosmology, he showed little direct interest in Tycho’s system and none at all in Longomontanus’ version of it. […] Moreover, he never mentioned explicitly the Tychonian world system by name.

Galileo in early modern Denmark, 1600-1650 by Helge Kragh

One has to wonder why Galileo Galilei — the man hailed as the “father of the scientific method” — would have been so dismissive of his illustrious colleagues (Brahe and Longomontanus) who, at the time, were perhaps the most highly-regarded astronomers in Europe.

“Galileo has been called the ‘father of observational astronomy’ the ‘father of modern physics’, the ‘father of the scientific method’, and even the ‘father of science’.”

— Wikipedia entry on “Galileo Galilei”

The Sun’s epitrochoidal oscillation

As I stumbled upon a French website which hosts the below animation, I was pleasantly surprised to read their caption describing the same: “Le schéma conceptuel montre le mouvement de type épitrocoïdal du Soleil autour du barycentre du système solaire.”

This translates to: “This conceptual schematic shows the epitrochoidal motion of the Sun around the barycenter of the solar system”.


Above — from Epitrochoid, Epitrochoide by Robert Ferréol, Jacques Mandonnet (2006)

In other words, the Sun’s subtle motion around our (alleged) “system’s barycenter” follows an epitrochoidal pattern which very much appears to mirror the epitrochoidal motion of Mars around the Sun!

The reason for this oscillation is currently explained as follows:

“The center of mass of our solar system is very close to the Sun itself, but not exactly at the Sun’s center (it is actually a little bit outside the radius of the Sun). However, since almost all of the mass within the solar system is contained in the Sun, its motion is only a slight wobble in comparison to the motion of the planets.”

Ask an Astronomer: Does the Sun orbit the Earth as well as the Earth orbiting the Sun? (July 2015, Cornell University)

It would appear that not everyone agrees that it is the Sun that oscillates around our Solar System’s barycenter. According to Wikipedia, what is observed is actually “the motion of the Solar System’s barycenter relative to the Sun”.

“The barycenter (or barycentre) is the center of mass of two or more bodies that are orbiting each other, or the point around which they both orbit. It is an important concept in fields such as astronomy and astrophysics. The distance from a body’s center of mass to the barycenter can be calculated as a simple two-body problem. In cases where one of the two objects is considerably more massive than the other (and relatively close), the barycenter will typically be located within the more massive object. Rather than appearing to orbit a common center of mass with the smaller body, the larger will simply be seen to wobble slightly.”

— Wikipedia entry on “Barycenter”

Weirdly, Wikipedia goes on to say that the Sun’s oscillation is due to

“the combined influences of all the planets, comets, asteroids, etc. of the Solar System”

The question is: could it possibly be, instead, that this slight wobble of the Sun is more simply a direct consequence of the influence of its binary companion Mars?

In any event, such oscillations on the part of host stars in binary systems are precisely what our modern-day astronomers look for (using sophisticated spectrometers and assorted state-of-the-art techniques) when trying to determine if a given star may host a smaller binary companion. It therefore seems quite plausible that the Sun’s small oscillation around its nucleus is caused by none other than its small binary companion, Mars.


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