xkcd #2898: Orbital Argument - eviltoast

https://xkcd.com/2898

Alt text:

“Some people say light is waves, and some say it’s particles, so I bet light is some in-between thing that’s both wave and particle depending on how you look at it. Am I right?” “YES, BUT YOU SHOULDN’T BE!”

  • niktemadur@lemmy.worldEnglish
    77·
    8 months ago

    It’s called a barycenter, kids, a common center that both objects circle around. That common center happens to be inside the sun, but that’s a topic for next week’s class in this semester’s AP Astrophysics program.

    • Johanno@feddit.deEnglish
      231·
      8 months ago

      Same for earth and moon. The center is inside earth. But not that close to the center of the earth itself

      • niktemadur@lemmy.worldEnglish
        19·
        8 months ago

        Meanwhile, Pluto and Charon noticeably orbit each other, the barycenter being fully outside of Pluto’s surface.

    • ByteJunk@lemmy.worldEnglish
      62·
      8 months ago

      I don’t think the barycentre is inside the sun? Wikipedia says on the barycentre article:

      When the less massive object is far away, the barycenter can be located outside the more massive object. This is the case for Jupiter and the Sun; despite the Sun being a thousandfold more massive than Jupiter, their barycenter is slightly outside the Sun due to the relatively large distance between them.[2]

      • hypertext5689@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        22·
        8 months ago

        I don’t think the barycentre is inside the sun?

        The Jupiter-Sun barycentre in outside the sun.

        The Earth-Sun barycentre is inside the sun.