This time we won’t find out if we are actually alone in the galaxy, but we will try to clarify one curiosities that many don’t think about. Do you know the orbit of the planets that is usually taught in school? Well, that’s not entirely accurate…
In fact, it is an extremely simplified version, which does not take into account some variables involved. For starters, though the Sun is the largest object in the Solar System with approximately 1,048 times the mass of Jupiter, gravity is often underestimated, or rather, the gravitational pulls of celestial bodies.
“There Kepler’s third law describes the relationship between the masses of two objects mutually rotating around each other, and the determination of orbital parameters. Consider a small star orbiting a more massive star. Both stars actually rotate around a common center of mass, called the barycenter. This is true regardless of size or mass of each of the objects involved“, explains NASA. But what does all this mean?
For several centuries we have stated with extreme simplicity that the planets orbit around the Sun. However, the center of gravity of the objects of the Solar System it is usually close to the Sungiven that it is the celestial body with the greatest mass, but thanks to the orbits and influence of Jupiter and Saturn, it is rarely found inside the Sun. The orbits resemble those you can observe in the video at the following link, created by planetary astronomer and science communicator, James O’Donoghue.
Accordingly, the Earth currently it does not orbit a point within the Sun, since the center of gravity is outside it. It is therefore more correct to say that we are actually orbiting that point in space.
“Planets orbit the Sun in general terms, but ‘technically they don’t orbit the Sunbecause the gravitational influence of (mostly) Jupiter causes the planets to orbit a new point in space“, says O’Donoghue himself on X.
After having seen a serious problem with travel to Mars, this time it is news that probably will not change the course of your life, but at least will offer you an interesting topic of discussion!
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