What Causes the Sun's Unusual Orbital Path in a Java Solar System Model?

AI Thread Summary
The Java solar system model demonstrates stable orbits for all planets, but the sun exhibits an unusual, wobbly orbital path. The model treats all celestial bodies as point masses with circular orbits around a common center of mass. The unexpected behavior of the sun's orbit raises questions about the underlying physics. Adding Jupiter to the model resolved some issues, suggesting its gravitational influence may stabilize the system. Further investigation is needed to fully understand the sun's erratic movement.
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I've written a java program to model the solar system. All my planets move in very well defined, stable orbits. The sun, on the other hand, is doing some very weird stuff. I've attached a plot of its path, a very zoomed in and a very zoomed out one. It isn't spiralling gradually inwards or outwards, as far as I can tell it's going in weird, wobbly loops. How do I explain that?! Especially as the rest of the planets work so well??

In my model, all bodies are point masses and have circular orbits, and they orbit around their common centre of mass.
 

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All good! Adding Jupiter fixed it.
 

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