does the sun go round the earth or does the earth go round the sun?

Question

my daughter has a probability homework assignment and i need to be 100% certain im sure the sun goes round the earth but hey what do i know

Answer 1

you are right my friend. Happy homework!

Answer 2

Neither. The answers that mention the barycenter are *mostly* correct. But actually, the sun & the earth do not "go around" anything -- they move in complicated paths, which are not circles or ellipses or any other simple geometric shape.

A very good *approximation* for the path is an ellipse. And the formula for the ellipse is simplest when when you assume that the Earth "goes around" the Sun. But if you want, you can write the formula in a way that the Sun "goes around" the Earth; it's just more complicated that way.

So the 100% correct answer is, neither one goes around the other. They follow paths in space in response to the total gravity field all the other planets, moons, and asteroids.

Answer 3

Now pay close attention. The earth spins around the sun, as do all the rest of the planets. The sun is the focal point of our solar system and the strong gravitational pull of the sun keeps this planet and all others in check, thus it is stationary, it does not trip around on an eliptical orbit, the earth does. As to the age old question on whether the earth is flat?.......i can attest to the fact that it is flat!!. I have seen transportation of all kinds going away from me, well they always get smaller until they disappear. Now i have had other(s) heritics tell me i must be daft but i can assure you that i am quite lucid, they tell me the earth is round!!! HA! i say how can you be sure?, have you ever traversed this earth by foot to see?, this leads me to only one conclusion....our earth is flat, and when things disappear off in the horizon it only menas that they have fallen off. Where do they go?, one can only guess, pergutory?, the heavens?, perhaps the stars them selves, that alas is a question that will remain mute for i have seen many leave but have not witnessed their return, sad or otherwise.

Answer 4

Since you ask is correct. They both revolve around their barycenter, or center of mass. Since the sun is so much more massive than the earth, the barycenter lies within the sphere of the sun, so the sun only does a little wobble while the earth swings in a wide orbit. See first two links for animations demonstrating this concept. The fourth animation on the first link shows the earth-sun relationship.

ADDENDUM

Isn't it funny how "common knowledge" is such an oxymoron? Perhaps, that should be "incomplete knowledge misremembered".

Answer 5

The earth, and all the other planets in out solar system, go round the sun. the earth takes 365 days to orbit the sun.

Answer 6

Jeez, all that stuff about barycenters just complicates the very simple fact that all the planets orbit the sun.

I am sorry, but I find it incredible that anyone in this day and age would ask this question - unless it was soemone from an unknown tribe in the Amazon.

What, did you think the sun and everything else circled the Earth because you see them go across the sky every day?

I am sorry, but I am flabbergasted. What the heck do you think a year is?

Answer 7

Both the sun and the earth orbit about their barycenter, which itself follows a complex path because of the presence of other planets. In other words, nothing in the solar system is still relative to the center of the mass of the solar system.

It's absolutely weird that this would be a PROBABILITY question, but if you want an elementary school answer, the earth goes around the sun. 100% probability of that, if you aren't interested in the actual complexity of the physics of it.

Answer 8

The planets go round the sun.
Galileo first thought that the Earth was in the middle of the universe and all the ather matter (asteroids, planets, stars, galaxies) revolve around Earth. But then Copernican changed the idea and Galileo admitted to his false understandings.

Answer 9

Silly.

The Earth goes around The Sun!

Answer 10

If you consider that the sun is moving through space at approximately 480,000 miles per hour with the earth tagging along at about 93 million miles from it and if you plotted this on graph paper you will see that the earth does not move in a circular orbit, but like a fish moving side to side.

Answer 11

If you want to be exactly correct, say they both rotate about a common center of gravity. Since the sun is so much heavier, the center of that gravity is actually with the sun, so it "appears" that the Earth rotates about the sun.

Ron.