this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
1357 points (99.5% liked)
xkcd
8964 readers
125 users here now
A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
it is possible for objects to orbit multiple objects at the same time. Add the moon to the system. The moon is orbiting the earth that is orbiting the sun that is orbiting the center of our galaxy. And yes each of them have a common center, just that it is very very close to the center of mass of the larger object in each case.
For the moon the earth is the dominant gravitational force, for the earth it is the sun and for the sun it is the center of our galaxy
You mean the galactic center, which in turn orbits a point somewhere in the middle of our local galactic cluster.
And our local galactic cluster is heading towards something ominous called the Great Attractor. It’s direction is hidden by the horizon of the Milky Way, but it is most likely another larger cluster of galaxies
youre right, i miexd up the words and edited it. thank you.