"Michael McNeil" wrote in message
news:fc2e7c15db7f162563c7f030a8196ec2.45219@mygate .mailgate.org...
How many explanations fit the bill for explaining errors in Newton's
Celestial Mechanics? I have heard that the idea the apparent centre of
the sun not being the centre of mass will do it as well as the
aberrations required to make relativity fit.

I came across another one too but lost the link.



This sounds like the early proposal that the Sun might be slightly oblate,
which would be enough to produce a small perihelion advance of 43" per
century. Another theory proposed that there is a small planet interior to
Mercury. There are several observational demonstrations that these
explanations are not correct.

No sign of of an inferior orbiting body of any significant size has ever
been detected. Observations of the Sun have shown that the figure is very
accurately spherical. And the amount by which GR would affect the
perihelion advance of Venus and Earth is sufficiently different, from that
due to the oblate Sun models, to rule out the latter by direct measurement
of perihelion advance.

--
Mike Dworetsky

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