Related: https://xkcd.com/2898/
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.
Correct.
I also believe that one of the criteria for a binary planet is that the barycenter is outside either body. Like Pluto/Charon.
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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.
I'm kinda stunned that it's EVER outside the sun.
Outside the sun? Typical Visiblist. The Alfvén surface would like to have a word. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfv%C3%A9n_surface
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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.
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So the Sun is wobbling arround, because of the 3 giants. Fascinating.
I wish that was updated for the current year (and beyond) It's important to know when giving OP's statement whether it's outside the sun at the moment
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Your mom's so fat, she pushes the barycenter of the solar system outside of the diameter of the Sun
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