The solar system is usually shown as a flat disc — eight planets circling the Sun on a neat, tidy plane. It makes for clean diagrams. It’s easy to visualize.
But it raises an obvious question that most people never think to ask:
What’s above that disc? What’s below it?
The answer is more interesting than you might expect. Because once you leave the familiar plane of the planets, you enter regions that are vast, mysterious, and largely invisible — structures that surround the solar system in every direction and connect us to the larger galaxy.
In this video, we’ll explore what’s really out there — above, below, and all around us.
Why is the solar system flat in the first place?
Before we look above and below, it helps to understand why the planets orbit in a disc at all.
00:00 Intro
00:45 Why is the solar system flat in the first place?
1:42 But the solar system itself is tilted
2:32There’s no real ‘up’ or ‘down’ in space
3:25 The Oort Cloud: a spherical shell of ice
4:50 The Heliosphere: our protective bubble
6:08 The Local Interstellar Cloud
6:45 The Local Bubble: carved by ancient explosions
8:24 Beyond the bubble: the galactic halo
9:18 What this tells us about our place in the universe
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Credit to : Insane Curiosity
