Jupiter, the huge gas giant that protects Earth and theinner planets from potentially catastrophic comet and asteroid collisions andis our solar system’s fifth planet from the Sun, is far more unusual thanyou’ve ever imagined.

Because the gas giant is so mᴀssive, it does not orbit theSun. Jupiter has a mᴀss 2.5 times that of all the other planets in our solarsystem put together. This indicates that the gas giant is so mᴀssive that thecenter of gravity between Jupiter and the Sun is a point in space just aboveour Sun’s surface, rather than within the Sun. And there’s a perfectly logicalreason for that.

When a smaller object circles a larger one, it does not goin a circle around the larger one. Rather, both of these objects circle a‘shared’ center of Gravity, which means they meet at the exact center.

However, Jupiter is unique. Because the gas giant is somᴀssive, its center of mᴀss is exactly 1.07 solar radii from the Sun’s core–about 7% of a sun radius over the Sun’s surface.

And this NASA GIF (not to scale) explains the effect:

The gas giant is so mᴀssive (estimated to be 143,000kilometers wide) that it might consume all of our solar system’s known planets.

In reality, the gas giant can hold about 1,300 Earths. Ourplanet’s gravitational center is so close to the Suns that this effect is minimal.As a result, the larger object (the Sun) appears to be stationary, while thesmaller object (the Earth) orbits it.

All of the other planets in our solar system, includingMercury, Venus, and even Saturn, have their centers of mᴀss deep within theSun.