orbital speed of our sun

Can anyone provide an approximate speed at which our sun orbits the
milkyway?

Also not to overburden with questions, but what physical principles
are responsible for the planets of our solar system and the shape of
most galaxies being mostly planar, i.e. why do most of our planets
fall within the eliptic?

Thanks!

"slinky" wrote in message
oups.com...
Can anyone provide an approximate speed at which our sun orbits the
milkyway?

Also not to overburden with questions, but what physical principles
are responsible for the planets of our solar system and the shape of
most galaxies being mostly planar, i.e. why do most of our planets
fall within the eliptic?

Thanks!


217 kms/sec.

Of course, you could have just looked it up in Wikipedia yourself, which
will also ultimately answer your other questions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_way

slinky wrote in news:1181053241.646857.279380
@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com:

Can anyone provide an approximate speed at which our sun orbits the
milkyway?

Also not to overburden with questions, but what physical principles
are responsible for the planets of our solar system and the shape of
most galaxies being mostly planar, i.e. why do most of our planets
fall within the eliptic?

Thanks!

BTW many galaxies are elliptical or near spherical in shape.

Klazmon

slinky wrote:
Can anyone provide an approximate speed at which our sun orbits the
milkyway?

Also not to overburden with questions, but what physical principles
are responsible for the planets of our solar system and the shape of
most galaxies being mostly planar, i.e. why do most of our planets
fall within the eliptic?

Thanks!


A spinning fluid will flatten into a disk. The solar system is believed
to have started out as a blob of gas collapsing by gravity, and the
random motions of that blob of gas were eventually corralled into a
general rotation over time (lots of details left out for brevity).

It is possible that collisions of clouds of stars and gas produced
galaxies, but at this time, even HST can only image some of this at the
edge of its resolution limits and we haven't seen the process to
completion because of the large time constraints. But, likely something
similar to the scenario of the solar system may have come into play in
these colliding clouds of gas and stars making galaxies.