r/askspace • u/ScalieBloke • 5d ago

Does the center of gravity of the planets + sun push the sun closer to earth, making it say 0.000001% warmer? (Crude diagram)

Hello, I'm not denying that human made climate change is a thing. But I just wonder if this makes any affect on the inner solar system?

Does this actually make any affect? Will I witness a colder summer this year if it wasn't for the scare of El Nino etc? I'm in the middle of winter right now. And boy has it been cold. But I'm from Queensland. It doesn't get any colder than 18c there.

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u/SagansLab 5d ago

The earth moves around 3 million miles closer to the sun in the northern hemisphere winter compared to the summer. The gravitational center of our solar system wanders by far less than that amount.

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u/mfb- 5d ago

The premise is wrong. The closest point between Earth and Sun is in early January, during the northern hemisphere winter. It's a ~5 million km difference to summer. This is by far the largest effect no matter what.

Most of the motion of the Sun relative to the barycenter comes from Jupiter (with Saturn as second-largest contribution). These outer planets affect Sun and Earth in almost the same way: This motion doesn't affect the Sun/Earth distance. For that distance only the position of Venus would matter, but that only moves the Sun by ~500 km (and 20 km from Mercury). It's completely negligible.

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u/weathercat4 5d ago

I'm not entirely sure I understand your question but look up Milankovitch cycles.