Does our moon independently orbit the sun?
Comment on The 'ol 1 2
Animated_beans@lemmy.world 6 months agoPluto is smaller than Earth’s moon. Should our moon be a planet too?
Zoidsberg@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Zellith@kbin.social 6 months ago
The barycenter between earth and the moon is within the earths crust. The barycenter between charon and pluto is outside of plutos surface. For those who dont understand, this means that the center of gravity between the earth and moon is INSIDE the earth. So the moon orbits a point within the earth. Not so with the charon pluto system. Both worlds orbit a point in space.
andthenthreemore@startrek.website 6 months ago
Gaia and Selene are double planets. Change my mind.
Pegajace@lemmy.world 6 months ago
No, because size is not what makes a moon a moon. Our Moon is a moon because it directly orbits a planet, not a star. Charon is massive enough relative to Pluto that the former does not directly orbit the latter, but instead they both orbit a common barycenter located between them, making them a binary planetary system.
DroneRights@lemm.ee 6 months ago
A binary dwarf planetary system
Frozengyro@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I mean the earth and moon do the same thing, just on a much smaller scale.
Pegajace@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Not quite. All two-body systems orbit a common barycenter, but the mass ratio of the Earth-Moon system is so lopsided that the barycenter is inside the Earth, not between them like with Pluto and Charon.