this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
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I mean, no, not really. The gravitational center of the sun-earth system is within the sun itself, so the earth definitely orbits the sun and the sun definitely does not orbit the earth. Let alone the fact that the sun’s movement is predominantly driven by Jupiter. (The gravitational center of the sun-Jupiter system is just above the sun’s surface.)
Pretty sure you can chose earth as fix point and have everything rotate around it on really strange orbits. Everything is kind of relative.
Wouldn't that break relativity tho if you treat the earth as a fixed point? Stuff really far out would have to be going absurdly faster than light to orbit the earth once every 24h. I feel like that's one of the ways to tell whether or not you're rotating, or stuff is orbiting you.
If the earth is fixed (not just in position, but in rotation), you're using a non-inertial reference frame, and things get wonky. But you can make the math work.