Happy Day Otter
New member
In a question, I got to wondering
if the sun orbits the center of mass of the solar system, even if that center of mass is deep inside the sun, does that mean that the sun's position is sometimes a bit to one side and sometimes a bit to the other? It should. So since the inverse square law would come into play, the attraction of mercury should vary a bit by the amount that the sun varies, squared. Is this significant enough to be noticed, and has it been noticed?
So the wobble is also in Mercury's orbit too?
It would make the thing potentially unstable if orbit is not an ellipse. ( ignoring known relativity effect)
if the sun orbits the center of mass of the solar system, even if that center of mass is deep inside the sun, does that mean that the sun's position is sometimes a bit to one side and sometimes a bit to the other? It should. So since the inverse square law would come into play, the attraction of mercury should vary a bit by the amount that the sun varies, squared. Is this significant enough to be noticed, and has it been noticed?
So the wobble is also in Mercury's orbit too?
It would make the thing potentially unstable if orbit is not an ellipse. ( ignoring known relativity effect)