How fast does the SUN move in orbit on its path around the galaxy?
The velocity of the Sun in its orbit within the Galaxy is even more uncertainly known. A major difficulty is that everything in our vicinity is certainly traveling at roughly the same velocity as we are (revolving around the Galaxy center), so they cannot be used as fixed reference points. Actually, there is virtually nothing that can be used as a fixed reference point for attempts to determine this value. All of the methods used are extremely indirect and subject to the possibility of error. We can consider two DIFFERENT velocities for the Sun, one in relation to nearby stars and the other as part of the whole rotation of the Galaxy. They are certainly in different directions (around 41° apart in our sky) and at rather different velocities. Regarding the first, some of the best of such methods appear to be the statistical analysis of Proper-motions and Radial-velocities of other stars in the sky. Patterns were noted early in the Twentieth Century, and by 1911, Wilson had shown that th
