The way this is phrased makes it sound like there's a certain threshold where this starts happening. That's not right. Even a grain of dust wouldn't orbit the sun, they still orbit their common barycenter. A less misleading way of phrasing would be that Jupiter is massive enough that the barycenter of it and the sun actually lies outside the sun, which is still a cool fun fact.
this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2025
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I mean that's literally the point the image is trying to make. The last sentence says the point is outside the sun for Jupiter.
I don't think nitpicking the title achieves anything and it's not even misleading unless it's only taken in isolation.
It says it's so massive they orbit a common point. That directly implies this only happens over a certain mass.
It says it's so massive they orbit a common point outside the sun. Smaller planets don't have their common point outside the sun.
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I was going to complain about the use of "barycenter" instead of the more commonly known "center of mass". But after some searching, I guess barycenter is more obscure because it's more specific. I'm ok with that.
i mean, with that logic, nothing orbits anything
For most bodies the barycenter, while not the same as the center of mass, is still inside the sun. This one isn't, making it notable
No, this is actually really relevant. This is part of the logic applied to labeling Pluto a dwarf planet. Pluto and it's moon do this, Earth and our moon do not. Yes, obviously the center of mass of the two isn't the exact center of the earth but it's still within the earth.
Asking a physicist about the center of an object is like asking a Tumblr user about thr color of the sky. The only response will be "which one?" And a sigh of exhaustion
Center of volume ≠ center of mass ≠ center of systemic gravity ≠ center of lift…
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You're not wrong. Everything orbits the center of mass of the system, meaning the mass of the star and the body in orbit. And that is handy for astronomers, many exoplanets have been found using the Doppler spectroscopy method. Doppler spectroscopy measures the Doppler shift in the star's light as it is pulled towards and away from us by planets in orbit. The newest spectrographs are sensitive enough to detect a star's wobble caused by an Earth sized body in orbit. The barycenter is still within the star, but not at the center of the star's mass.
Fun fact: You actually pull the Earth up with the same force it pulls you down.. Newton’s Third Law.
I've been told that certain peoples mothers happen to pull the earth with a bit more force than others.
Do all the planets also orbit around that same barycenter, or does each planet have a different one?
All the solar system matter contributes to an object's orbital center but that's constantly moving as the system moves.
I think (?) most planets have their barycenter inside the sun's surface
The gravitational pull of system matter pales in comparison to the sun so you don't need to consider it for amateur purposes.
You can try KSP (Vanilla) versus Kopernicus mod if you want to feel the difference.
Also called n-body
Technically speaking, no celestial body in our solar system orbits around a single point. The barycenter thing only works with two bodies. When there are more than two bodies, such as in our solar system, the orbits become chaotic. Granted, the influence between planets is small, so they all appear to orbit their barycenters with the sun, but there are small perturbations to the orbits caused by the locations and masses of all the other bodies in the solar system.
Isn't that the 3-body-problem? That already with 3 bodies affecting each other a system is chaotic.
I guess they all orbit around the solar system's center of mass (negligibly affected by the universal CoM), but that CoM probably moves around as the planets themselves move.
Relative to what, you might ask? That depends who you're asking 😉
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The barycenter is different for each planet-sun (or any two object) pairing.
The earth and moon have a barycenter which is beneath the surface of earth. Likewise, the barycenter of the sun-earth pair is below the surface of the sun
Edit:
The barycenter of our solar system orbits the center of our galaxy (again in a barycentric manner)
That’s why I lose my balance!
This is true about any 2 objects with mass.
No, it is not true in general that the barycenter lies outside both objects.
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"outside the objects"
It was outside the environment.
A wave hit it.
The front is not supposed to fall off
Barycenters are not necessarily outside the objects, either.
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