The Helical Model of the Solar System (is probably crap)

By Ben • science, space • 1 Mar 2013

So, I saw this beautiful & interesting GIF via the twitter:

Helical Model of the Solar System.

Intrigued, I hunted down the original source, which was from this website, which included the full video (below):

Further intrigued, I did some Googling around about the helical model of the solar system & the scientist named in the video- Dr. Pallathadka Keshava Bhat. At first, when researching the helical model, I found it interesting that there was so little information about it- no major websites or universities were among the results that popped up. Most were links to the video above.

When searching for information about Dr. Pallathadka Keshava Bhat, I found a page with his "curriculum vitae" (it isn't really a CV), on a website with the sketchy title, "Free Energy and Free Thinking." Then after further searching, I found his name mentioned on the Wikipedia page for the hamlet of Pallathadka in India, where it notes that Dr. Pallathadka Keshava Bhat is a

"Retired Professor in Botany at Universidad Oriente in Venezuella. He was a Botanist who advocated holistic living and alternate scientific approach. He has also suggested 'A New Interpretation of Solar System'."

So, yeah. The video is cool. It's beautiful. It's also 99.99% guaranteed to be bogus. I'm guessing astronomy was a little outside of Dr. Bhat's sweet spot, and I haven't found any evidence of support from any astronomers or physicists.

[UPDATE: Phil Plait (an actual astronomer) debunks the Helical Model of the Solar System in much more detail over at his blog.]

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