This is true about any 2 objects with mass.
this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2025
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I believe that's the same for every planet. And every moon. For every orbit.
Its just that the barycenter is inside the more massive object when one is much more massive than the other. Not that this makes much of a difference to anything.
I mean, sure, but that'd be like saying I'm pulling the earth towards me when I jump.
You don't have to jump, you're already doing it. Some of us more than others... *Looks in mirror and hangs head
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Correct.
I also believe that on of the criteria for a binary planet is that the barycenter is outside either body. Like Pluto/Charon.
Don't forget the other 3 bodies in the Pluto/Charon system
I’ve always preached inclusivity and would welcome 3 more planets
Asteroids everything does to some degree even if miniscule I'd assume.
Pluto and it's biggest moon Charon about for the very center outside of each other. This means that you could build a space elevator directly between the surface of each of them and it would rotate around that point since they're also tightly locked.
Is it more true to say that Jupiter (and the other planets and asteroid belts and dust clouds in our solar system) orbits the Sun, and the Sun orbits the barycenter? The barycenter that the sun revolves around is influenced (marginally) by the other bodies in the solar system and not just Jupiter. If the definition of a barycenter is to be interpreted as this image suggests, that would mean that no material object orbits another material object and they instead orbit their collective center of mass somewhere in space.
I thought it was a like Jerryboree but for Barys, which I think makes way more sense.
Jerry loves Pluto, but Bary thinks very little of it
no material object orbits another material object and they instead orbit their collective center of mass somewhere in space.
That’s exactly what happens. Why do you think this is incorrect?
It seems to fundamentally change what it means “to orbit” something.
As I understood the term, orbiting would be used correctly in these cases:
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A lighter object orbits a heavier object, and both of their paths of motion are elliptical about their barycenter
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Two objects of identical mass orbit each other, and their paths of motion are circular about their barycenter
In contrast, the image above implies the following:
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A lighter object does not orbit a heavier object; they both orbit their barycenter with an elliptical path of motion
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Two objects of identical mass do not orbit each other; they both orbit their barycenter with an circular path of motion
Even the Wikipedia page for barycenter, which OP linked to, opens with the following:
“the barycenter… is the center of massof two or more bodies that orbit one another and is the point about which the bodies orbit.”
Perhaps “orbit” as a verb has two meanings, depending on the specificity of the context.
No, your earlier definitions are incorrect. All orbits happen around the barycenter. The only question is whether one of the bodies is large/massive enough that the barycenter is located within it
I mean, the Wikipedia page for Jupiter says “Jupiter orbits the Sun”
Just because a more accurate description exists, doesn't mean that the less accurate description is fundamentally wrong. Depending on context, the less accurate description may be perfectly suitable for the subject at hand. If your priority is to be the most correct, then by all means go ahead and use the more accurate description.
I think this logic applies to a lot of things.
I take issue with how the meme says “Jupiter doesn’t orbit the Sun”, which rejects one valid and common way of using the verb “to orbit”.
It's articulated as "it's wrong", while the message they're trying to convey is more like "it's not the entire truth". The latter is hard to get across is a handful of words though, likely leaving more questions than answers. I believe they did a decent enough job that most of us can read the point between the lines.
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I guess your conclusion is right. In situations where the barycenter of two (or more) objects is not sufficiently different from the center of mass of the heaviest object, we simplify the description by assuming that the barycenter and the center of mass of the heavier object are equal.
Just because I’ve already edited it, here’s an animation of Earth orbiting the Earth–Moon barycenter:
I’m no astronomical guru, but I’m surprised I didn’t know this.
When I was a kid, we were taught there's 9 and only 9 planets, they all orbit the sun, and humans have existed for at least 30 years.
Now I find out 1 of those 9 planets was a fraud. Theres also thousands of OTHER planets outside our solar system. And also, time is an illusion only placed in our reality to distract us from the concept of a realized immortality. We die when we want. We come into this world naked, bloody, covered in goo, and getting spanked until we cry. And we die the same way....when we WANT to!
School is all a bunch of lies man! Trust your instincts! Consume prilosec!
In a field of study where it’s not just acceptable, but prudent to round pi to “1” because the numbers are that big….
I gotta say, it’s close enough to say Jupiter orbits Sol. Just saying.
Nah, there is no way any astronomer studying orbital mechanics in our solar system is rounding pi to 1. There is virtually no practical calculation you could do on the mechanics of the sun or planets where rounding a known constant by a factor of 3 would yield any useful result whatsoever.
Rounding pi to 1 only makes sense when the uncertainty in the numbers is large, not the magnitude of the numbers, and we know the masses and distances of the objects in our solar system to an amazing level of precision!
Plus, the fact that Jupiter is massive enough to actually exert an influence that large on the sun is pretty fucking cool!
The reason being, that once you go large enough, a multiplier of three is irrelevant, and they only really care about orders of magnitude. You might be tempted to argue that that doesn't happen inside the solar system, and you'd be right. Mostly.
Except that astronomy doesn't concern itself with just our system. So yes. Astronomers do frequently round to 1 because it really doesn't matter that much in the scheme of things. (particularly talking about distances.) it's even more so for cosmology.
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The barycenter is sometimes outside the diameter of the sun. Not always, and I believe not even usually.
Yes, today I'm being that guy. Still a cool factoid.
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Aren't we simply talking about LaGrange points? Or am I misunderstanding?
I think Lagrange points are where geosynchronous orbits are possible without constant corrections.
Geosynchronous means the orbital period is a day and relatively circular. Satellites with these orbits basically look down at the same part of the Earth.
Lagrange points are locations along an orbit where gravitational forces balance out with the centrifugal force of the orbit. This does allow less fuel expenditure to maintain.
For the Earth-Sun or Earth-Moon systems, the Lagrange points do not occur at the altitude of the geosynchronous orbit. The Lagrange points are either significantly further away or at a different orbital phase.
Jupiter is so massive, if you give it more hydrogen, it gets smaller.
My dumb friend wants to know why adding more mass would make Jupiter smaller, can you help explain it to him?
I misrembered, it remains roughly the same volume, until 1.6 juipiters of mass, at which point the effect of gravity from each additional hydrogen is greater than the intermolecular forces and additional hydrogen would cause it to compress more than it would grow.
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The increased mass increases the force of gravity on the outer particles which ends up reducing the radius more than the increase due to the layer of new hydrogen, IIRC.
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Is your friend the same crazy person I know who doesn't eat meat? Are they crazy?
_i don't know why your comment made me think of that reference _
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Fun fact: if I threw a rock hard enough, it and the sun would orbit around their "barycenter" which would happen to be just about the center of the sun (probably, i dont work here).
So the Sun is wobbling arround, because of the 3 giants. Fascinating.
The link in your post links to a different image. Was that on purpose?
Oopsy, fixed.
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I found it super helpful to have the Sun's center of mass labeled!
I only wish Jupiter's center of mass was also labeled in this graphic. I've been trying to puzzle it out myself, but I'm stumped!
I think if it's to scale, Jupiter is way offscreen, like in another room in your building far away.
I really want a space station in the barycenter of Pluto or something. It would be as close to true neutral of gravity instead of the gravity negated by acceleration of mass that may or may not screw up gravity experiments
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