The moon revolves around the earth because it is larger in mass. The earth revolves around the sun. Doesn’t it make sense then that there is something gigantic that really revolves around it? Could that be possible? Perhaps the earth is a molecule of something MUCH bigger!
Answer
There is already a next step: the solar system describes a movement around the center of our galaxy, with a speed of about 250 km/s.
Galaxies also move relative to each other. But usually they don’t do it in pairs, but in many at once. Moreover, the masses of those different objects are comparable. That does not give rise to a movement in the sense that one moves around the other. For example, our Milky Way and the Andromeda Nebula move relative to each other at a speed of several hundred km/s, but the exact path is also determined by other galaxies in our vicinity, which are called the ‘local group’. That local group is attracted to a large cluster in the constellation Virgo, which in turn is attracted to a mass in the constellation Centaurus. But from a certain length scale (of the order of 100 billion light-years) the attraction from all directions is about the same and there is no more net effect.
As you put it yourself, a simple closed orbit movement occurs when there is a strong hierarchy between the objects. The planets revolve around the Sun because they feel so much more attraction from the Sun than from other objects. Also, galaxies and clusters of galaxies are mainly attracted to what is in their environment, and if there are more nearby objects in a certain direction, this causes a movement. At very large scales, the mass in the universe is more evenly distributed, and the attractions from all directions tend to offset each other.
You say ‘the Earth is a molecule of something bigger’. You can indeed see it that way. And just like molecules in the air, its movement is mainly changed by objects it comes close to. But it’s not because molecules in the air are always moving on small scales, that it always has to be blowing in the room!!
Answered by
Prof. dr. Christopher Waelkens
Astronomy
Old Market 13 3000 Leuven
https://www.kuleuven.be/
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