1000 Jupiters could fit inside of the Sun.
The study of astrology, which I undertook to aid and augment understanding of divination and divinatory systems, has renewed my interest in astronomy. Last night I discovered the Edge of the Universe series on Netflix; it was a good scratch for the now on-going itch to learn more about space and celestial bodies. I usually enjoy having my mind blown and oftentimes a good science documentary will do just that. Watching this documentary, I realized with awe and glee, how absolutely inaccurate my vague and mostly self-constructed concept of planet and star relations was.
1,300 Earths could fit inside of Jupiter.
It would take 3.5 Earths alone just to fit across Jupiter's red spot.
Jupiter is 1200 million miles from the sun and takes 12 years to orbit it. Digest that. The second bit, is that Jupiter pulls our sun as much as 1.2 million miles off its center during this orbit. Eeeeeeee!? Scientists use this phenomenon in their search for planets, (specifically small ones like Earth that might support life as we know it). Stars that are orbited by giant gaseous planets, such as Jupiter wobble in space. That is, when the image of these stars is recorded, there is a wobbling back-and-forth of the star as the huge planet moves around it, (think, too many blankets in the washing machine or novice attempts on a pottery wheel).
Here’s a simple, concise article on the concept of a barycenter, the center of gravity around which a planet and it’s sun actually rotate: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/barycenter/en/.
For years, no planets were discovered, until a breakthrough made it apparent that many gas giants do not take 12 years to orbit their suns like Jupiter does; some take a matter of weeks, or even days! Here I was, imagining those outer planets as inconceivably far away, deep in a sea of black space and reasoning that their effect upon earth must be minute. Gravitationally, their pull on earth is very small, (particularly in comparison with the sun or even the moon) yet the gravitational dance between suns and planets takes on a new and intricate dimension as one considers the location of each planet on its orbit and the effect of its gravity upon the solar system. Neptune was discovered because of aberrations in the orbit of its nearest planetary neighbor, Uranus.
1 million Earths fit inside the Sun.
The Sun’s diameter is more than 1 million Km.
This gives me pause to consider the balance of these relatively gargantuan pulls upon us wee human beings. What is their actual effect upon us? The only way to know, I think, is to observe over time, (as astronomers do with stars and planets) our own wobbles; and to question and consider all of the orbiting bodies we may have in our systems and that might be traced from the wobble. Perhaps there a gas giant in our midst, orbiting furiously, 700x per second and invisible because we did not know how to look.