The Earth orbits the Sun

Exciting that I'm learning so much throughout this debate. I'll continue to rebut Con's arguments in attempt to satisfy the BoP of proving (to the best of my ability) heliocentrism. R1) Parallax My opponent states that we don't know much about the stars, and from my understanding, the only information we can obtain is through pictures. I would like to rebut this and say that our knowledge of stars falls not on the observations drawn from simple pictures, but from much more complex methods, such as spectroscopy, or measuring the amounts of different colors of light to determine chemical make up of stars [1]. Furthermore, he states that something set the entirety of the universe in motion. I agree that this is another debate altogether; glad we don't have to debate that here as well. However, my opponent brings up the point of the entire universe remaining in motion until a force acts upon it, according to Newton's law. This would stay true with the heliocentric view, by looking at gravity. This could be explained by the supposed black hole at the center of our galaxy [2]. If there was no force, as my opponent is suggesting (I believe; I could be wrong), then all planets and stellar bodies would move in straight lines, not in a spiral. I am not ignoring the aether argument; I will address this later in the debate. R2) Retrograde Motion Looking back I see I did in fact bring up Mars, and I do believe I stated that I understand it can be proven in both theories. I would like to redefine my question, or simply re-ask as I am not sure where the proof lies. I understand the fan argument, and again a good description of explaining the concept. However, applying this to stars even a few lightyears away would require them to orbit the earth faster than the speed of light, something that (as of now) is impossible. With a star two light years away (or a radius of say, 2), then the orbit (even generalizing to a circle) would be about 4*pi lightyears. This would require, in the year it takes to orbit the Earth according to Geocentrism, a speed greater than the speed of light. *I may be wrong in my calculations. Please correct my if I made an error or am mistaken* R3) Time Lapse Photos Thank you for the elaboration, as I understand much more now. If possible, I'd like to retract my statement on stars moving, and pose a new rebuttal, or question for that matter. If we are looking at strictly photos, these time-lapse pictures, how do we know which stars are closer or farther away from Earth? This argument requires us to have knowledge about these stars, and if I am not mistaken, you stated that we are not sure about these distances, or that we do not have much knowledge on these stars. Either we are able to know about these stars and my argument holds true, or we do not and this portion of the debate holds no water. R4) Moon's Orbit I would like to first point out that the Earth travels 107,000km/hour, not 107. Might have been a mistake, so I will not dwell on this. I also would like to ask why we would see this acceleration daily. According to the Heliocentric model, the Moon orbits the Earth about every 27 days [2]. This would mean we would see the Moon get closer and farther about every month, not every day, a time period that is feasible. Also, my opponent states that no matter how much or how little the Moon varies in speed, it would break Newton's Laws. I disagree with this, as I already stated that gravity from the Earth would affect the Moon's speed (this gravity being the force allowing for a change in motion) [3]. It would not be a change in thousand's of kilometers per day, but rather a change of a few hundred km/hour per month. R4) Polaris I disagree that the parallax is too small. Scientists have been able to measure the parallax of Polaris down to the thousandth of an arcsec, or about 1/3,600,00 or a degree [4] [5]. This measurement of .007 arcsec is enough to give us an estimate on the stars distance. R5) Other Galaxies As stated in previous rebuttals, we are able to know what this brightness is, using spectroscopy and determining what mineral or substance would give off that light. Also, the Hubble Telescope is able to give us much clearer pictures than "a brightness in the centers of these galaxies [6]." In any case, viewing this large bright center with smaller objects orbiting would lend way to believing that our solar system could also mimic this pattern, with a bright center (the Sun) and smaller bright objects (planets). R6) Movement of Earth/Plane Flight A well posed argument here. The simple answer is that when a plane, or helicopter, takes off, it is not simply moving still. If this were the case, then yes, the Earth would move right under it and allow us to make a 1,000 mile trip in a matter of an hour. This is not the case. Even a helicopter, to give a better description of hovering above the Earth, is traveling the same speed as the Earth at the point of take off [7]. Take the example of sitting in a car. If a person in the back wants a ball from a person in the front, the person sitting shotgun is not able to simply toss the ball up in the air and have the ball travel to the back. Tossing a ball straight in the air will cause it to come back down into your hand, because it was initially traveling the same speed as the car. R7) Experiments As for these four experiments, I would like to state that, from what I understood, are proving the existence of the aether (or attempting to). Through these experiments, it is tough to use the speed of light with the limitations of technology. for example, light can travel almost two miles in 1/100,000th of a second, or 1/100th of a millisecond. Regardless, light travels too fast for these experiments to have any effect on the belief of the aether moving, not the Earth. I do not have many more arguments to present, as I believe me and my opponent have settled on a few topics that are worth debating. Instead, I would like to ask a few questions that I believe could undermine my opponent's arguments. I believe that my refutations also continue to support Heliocentrism. Questions: 1) If the Earth is not spinning, or that the Earth is stationary, how are we to account for the daily cycle? Wouldn't this require the Sun to have an orbital time of about 24 hours? 2) How are we sure that the Earth is the center of the Universe? I already somewhat asked this, yet I don't think an answer was given. Much of your argument relies on the belief that the Universe orbits the Earth (or the Sun, which orbits the Earth), yet Heliocentrism does not declare, nor need, a center of the Universe. 3) Would you be able to expand on the aether argument? I understood slightly (a medium that encapsulates the rest of the Universe and allows it to continue motion without gravity, correct), but I am not sure of the proof, nor how it would prove Geocentrism. Thanks, looking forward to hearing back. Sources: [1] - http://www.ph.surrey.ac.uk... [2] - http://solarsystem.nasa.gov... [3] - http://cseligman.com... [4] - http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu... [5] - http://www.alcyone.de... [6] - http://hubblesite.org... [7] - http://curious.astro.cornell.edu...