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trendal
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Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Position of the planets, and Earth's climate
#11291189 - 10/21/09 10:52 AM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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I was watching the news the other day, and they had an article on about planets being discovered around other stars. They brought up the point about how large planets actually cause a star to wobble in place slightly. This isn't news to me...but it got me thinking about something.
If our own sun exhibits this wobbling motion...does that mean the sun could be farter or closer to the Earth at times? If we had the outer planets all lined up, by how far would the sun be pulled?
Could this account for some of the environmental changes on Earth?
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
Edited by trendal (10/21/09 11:13 AM)
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Middleman
Registered: 07/11/99
Posts: 8,399
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Re: Position of the planets, and Earth's climate [Re: trendal]
#11292009 - 10/21/09 01:08 PM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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Aren't those planets 10 times larger than Jupiter? Anyway, I think the difference would be negligible. Earth moves slightly closer and farther from the sun but it does not affect the seasons, it's Earth's tilt.
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=196
It is interesting to note that the orbit of Jupiter and the Sun's activity cycle are both around 11 years, there is more to it than gravity.
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trendal
J♠
Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: Position of the planets, and Earth's climate [Re: Middleman]
#11292432 - 10/21/09 02:11 PM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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Aren't those planets 10 times larger than Jupiter?
The ones they recently discovered were as small as 4x the Earth...
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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DieCommie
Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
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Re: Position of the planets, and Earth's climate [Re: Middleman]
#11292861 - 10/21/09 03:21 PM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Middleman said: Aren't those planets 10 times larger than Jupiter? Anyway, I think the difference would be negligible. Earth moves slightly closer and farther from the sun but it does not affect the seasons, it's Earth's tilt.
It does affect the seasons some bit. Our winters in the N. Hemisphere are milder because of this, once we precess to where we are further from the sun in winter then we will have harsher winters. I believe this correlates with the cycle of Ice Ages.
I agree, the wobble would likely be negligible.
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cortex
[ H ] ψ = [ E ] ψ
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Re: Position of the planets, and Earth's climate [Re: DieCommie]
#11293138 - 10/21/09 03:59 PM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
DieCommie said:
Quote:
Middleman said: Aren't those planets 10 times larger than Jupiter? Anyway, I think the difference would be negligible. Earth moves slightly closer and farther from the sun but it does not affect the seasons, it's Earth's tilt.
I believe this correlates with the cycle of Ice Ages.
I agree, the wobble would likely be negligible.
Ice ages are definitely not negligible climate changes, and I think they are caused by a variety of events including tectonic changes, atmospheric changes, and some other kind of gravitational shifts, but I don't think "planetary gravitational wobble" (is there a better term for that?) really has anything to do with ice ages. I think you were right in your second statement, any effect would be negligible. (or maybe I misunderstood you)
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trendal
J♠
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Re: Position of the planets, and Earth's climate [Re: cortex]
#11293584 - 10/21/09 05:05 PM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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I've done a little more research, and it appears that the sun wobbles by around a million km (the barycenter of the solar system).
Actually, it's about the radius of the sun...making the barycenter just outside of the sun.
Short answer...not very much
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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Annom
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Re: Position of the planets, and Earth's climate [Re: trendal]
#11298484 - 10/22/09 09:48 AM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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Here is an image of the movement of the solar system barycenter relative to the Sun, from wikipedia:
And related, the effect of the orbit and orientation of Earth on our climate, the Milankovitch cycles.
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