14 ms·
For the Earth-Sun system, the center of mass is only shifted a few 100 km towards the earth, but the radius of the sun is 695500 km. So the offset is less than
by Luc 13y ago
For the Earth-Sun system, the center of mass is only shifted a few 100 km towards the earth, but the radius of the sun is 695500 km. So the offset is less than 1/1000 of the radius of the sun.
- rplnt 13y agoBut we don't live in an Earth-Sun system. The point around which planets revolve in our solar system is often outside of the sun as can be seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_system_barycenter.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_system_barycenter.sv...
- randlet 13y agoThanks. That is a really cool diagram! I had no idea that it varied so much over time.
- saalweachter 13y agoThat wibble-wobbles around much faster than I would have expected. It looks like Jupiter is way faster than I thought it was. My guestimate for gas giant orbits was skewed towards Uranus/Neptune (84/165 years), but Jupiter orbits in only 12!. It's crazy how close Jupiter is to us.