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Ok_Neighborhood_1203 t1_iy6xp4y wrote

Reply to comment by Any_Palpitation_3110 in what would be different if we had two moons by Any_Palpitation_3110

That could actually be a stable configuration... the two moons would orbit their barycenter, and that barycenter would orbit the planet. It wouldnt last forever but easily hundreds of thousands of years, like the rings of Saturn.

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PandaEven3982 t1_iy90oye wrote

Depends on relative masses. Terra and Luna are following a barycentric orbit of Sol :-)

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Ok_Neighborhood_1203 t1_iy968gk wrote

True... though in the case of the moon-earth system, the barycenter is about 1000 miles inside the Earth. And all the other planets, meteors, comets, and dust in the rest of the solar system are perturbing our orbit too. Even the surrounding stars and galaxies have tiny effects on orbits if you can measure them precisely enoigh.

Neat fact, the Sun-Jupiter barycenter is outside the surface of the sun. So, the solar system actually orbits empty space :)

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PandaEven3982 t1_iy97cd6 wrote

Grinz, nod, yup. Wake me up when we have an O'Neill colony at L4. Or when we can explain the math of null gravity versus microgravity :-)

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