Yes it does. Imagine a giant teeter totter with the sun on one side of the plank and Jupiter on the other. The balance point or 'fulcrum' would coincide with the barycenter point. The barycenter is located just outside the surface of the Sun, but its position in space changes depending on the locations of the planets. The above cartoon from Space Place shows the circumstances for Jupiter, whose mass dominates that of the other planets. There has been some speculation that the barycentric motion of the Sun may have some impact on the solar activity cycle. It turns out that the solar cycle period of about 11 years is similar to the orbital period of Jupiter, especially when the additional perturbations of the other planets are added to the barycenter motion. More work is being done on this 'coincidence' to see if there could be a physical reason for it beyond simply the coincidence in the two time scales.
Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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