Talk:Barycenter

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"When the two bodies are of similar masses ... the barycenter will be located outside of either of them and both bodies will follow an orbit around it. This is the case for Pluto and Charon, Jupiter and the Sun..."

I just crunched the numbers, and the barycenter as calculated for just the two objects Sol & Jupiter gets me a barycenter that is about 87% of Sol's diameter (i.e., about 13% of the way inside Sol's outermost layer). I used the following values:

r_tot = 7.783x10⁸ km (mean distance between Sol and Jupiter)

m₁ = 1.899×10²⁷ kg (mass of Jupiter)

m₂1.9891×1030 kg (mass of Sol).

This results in Jupiter being 777 557 663.3 km from the barycenter, and Sol being 742 336.7 km from the barycenter. Is the above-quoted claim incorrect, or is my math misleading due to ignoring the other bodies in the Solar System?

The barycenter is more than 50% of the diameter of the Sun away from the center, so outside the Sun.--Patrick 12:21, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge?

I think this article should be merged with center of mass. Physically this article gives no new info than center of mass. 193.52.24.125 18:42, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I have just merged the 2. 193.52.24.125 17:46, 24 October 2005 (UTC)