Five for the sheer ignorance of this vid and the people who promote it.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/03/04/vortex_mot ion_viral_video_showing_sun_s_motion_through_galaxy_is_wrong.html< br />
One commenter gushed: "What it lacks in accuracy it more than makes up for in generating curiosity and wonder."
I wanted to reach in through my monitor and punch them. It's like saying that presenting the movie "How to Train Your Dragon" as a documentary is beneficial because it generates curiosity and wonder in researching biology. The universe is ALREADY a mysterious and grand place, so you don't have to make shit up to be amazed by it.
He also doesn't seem to know that the planets don't orbit in a perfect circle. And if you are going to count the direction that the solar system is traveling within the galaxy, why not count the direction the galaxy is traveling in the universe?
Arguing that the sun's movement through the galaxy, in any way shape or form, is against the heliocentric model of the solar system is so removed from critical thinking it's like saying that the rate an apple decays argues against the height of a banana tree. It's so close to random that the conclusion had to exist before the investigation.
That being said, the majority of Americans don't know the sun moves at all, so someone who got the angle wrong by 30 degrees, didn't know about the elliptical orbits of planets, and got the nature of gravity wrong, seems like a smart person by comparison.
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