40 Trivia Items About Space That Make Us Feel Smarter

Imagine a whole planet that orbits the same point as a star. As explained in the comments, Jupiter’s barycenter is 1.07 radii from the middle of the sun–or 7% of a sun radius above the sun’s surface. This basically means it’s right next to the sun rather than the sun itself.

That means that Jupiter is pulled to the same place as the sun, which is very impressive. Yes, Jupiter is big, but it’s about ten times smaller than the sun. That is a sizable difference, and yet they still circle the same point.