Where is the Center of the Solar System?
If somebody asks you where the center of the solar system is, you would probably say “the sun.”
The orrery shows it all. Everything orbits around the sun (which we knew a lot earlier than most think. Geocentric beliefs were kind of always pseudo science).
Except that it’s not that simple.
What is a Barycenter?
A barycenter is the point in any system around which the objects in the system orbit. So, the barycenter for the Earth and the Moon is…
…you guessed it. Not exactly the Earth. Now, because the Earth is considerably larger, the barycenter is inside the Earth. It’s not, however, the center of the Earth.
The moon does not orbit the Earth. They both orbit the barycenter. Which is, on average (because it wobbles) about 2,902 miles from the Earth’s center. The Earth’s radius is only 3,963 miles. So it’s nowhere near the center of the Earth.
This was an easy barycenter to calculate. You only have two things to worry about. The fact that the barycenter isn’t in the middle of the Earth causes the Earth to wobble. Effectively, thanks to the…
