I don't know why the animation does that, probably just to make it look cooler. The Sun takes a fairly circular path around the galaxy - it's slightly elliptical, but not by much. Its path also isn't quite a perfect ellipse because we're being affected by spiral arms, close-passing stars, and other concentrations of math. But again, nothing like the animation.
There aren't any effects so far as I know to being closer to the galactic center - we don't get very close. We are currently at a point in our orbit where we are closer than normal.
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u/liquor-ice-mixer 12h ago
is there any side effects when the solar system gets closer to the smbh? in the animation it looks like occasionally we MUCH closer