3 ms·
But doesn't this show that the main players of the solar system are the sun and Jupiter? Apologies for the source, and my clear lack of knowledge in astronomy.
by jansho 9y ago
But doesn't this show that the main players of the solar system are the sun and Jupiter?
Apologies for the source, and my clear lack of knowledge in astronomy.
- theoh 9y agoAll planets orbit the centre of mass of themselves and the local star, modulo interactions with other planets. The position of the centre of mass relative to the surface of the star is completely immaterial. NB for smaller bodies, Jupiter is involved in perturbing or capturing their orbits to a great extent -- but we could conceivably have several very large planets contributing to that dynamic. Yes, Jupiter is the largest planet.
- fwefwwfe 9y agoThey are the two most massive, so that is tautologically true...
- bzbarsky 9y agoThe contribution of Jupiter to the overall solar system barycenter is about the same as that of Saturn and Neptune combined (see numbers in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14576751 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14576751 ). So I guess it depends on how you define "main"....