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The Moon also revolves around the center of mass of the solar system. In a sense more than it does around the earth. In particular Moon's orbit around the barycenter is convex - the popular picture of Moon's orbit having loops is wrong in that sense.



My illustrative story from a few years back, was that if Earth were to vanish, the Moon's orbit would merely smooth out a bit, losing a slight ripple. Whereas if Jupiter were to vanish, Io would zoom away, perhaps even leaving the solar system, or impacting the Sun.


> the popular picture of Moon's orbit having loops is wrong in that sense.

Do you mean the moon never moves 'backwards'?


Yep. Here's a discussion with diagrams and numbers: https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/10979/moons-or...



It never goes backwards and it never "bends in" towards Sun.


I think it's better to say it never "bends out" away from the sun, which is a different way to statue that it's orbit around the sun is convex.




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