Solar system means

Yesterday I stumbled on the fact that the size of Jupiter is roughly the geometric mean between the sizes of Earth and the Sun. That’s not too surprising: in some sense (i.e. on a logarithmic scale) Jupiter is the middle sized object in our solar system.

What I find more surprising is that a systematic search finds mean relationships that are far more accurate. The radius of Jupiter is within 5% of the geometric mean of the radii of the Earth and Sun. But all the mean relations below have an error less than 1%.

$\begin{eqnarray*} R_\Mercury &=& \mbox{GM}\left(R_\Moon, R_\Mars\right) \\ R_\Mars &=& \mbox{HM}\left(R_\Moon, R_\Jupiter\right) \\ R_\Uranus &=& \mbox{AGM}\left(R_\Earth, R_\Saturn\right) \\ \end{eqnarray*}$

The radius of Mercury equals the geometric mean of the radii of the Moon and Mars, within 0.052%.

The radius of Mars equals the harmonic mean of the radii of the Moon and Jupiter, within 0.08%.

The radius of Uranus equals the arithmetic-geometric mean of the radii of Earth and Saturn, within 0.0018%.

See the links below for more on AM, GM, and AGM.

Now let’s look at masses.

$\begin{eqnarray*} M_\Earth &=& \mbox{GM}\left(M_\Mercury, M_\Neptune\right) \\ M_\Pluto &=& \mbox{HM}\left(M_\Moon, M_\Mars\right) \\ M_\Uranus &=& \mbox{AGM}\left(M_\Moon, M_\Saturn\right) \\ \end{eqnarray*}$

The mass of Earth is the geometric mean of the masses of Mercury and Neptune, within 2.75%. This is the least accurate approximation in this post.

The mass of Pluto is the harmonic mean of the masses of the Moon and Mars, within 0.7%.

The mass of Uranus is the arithmetic-geometric mean of the masses of the Moon and Saturn, within 0.54%.

Related posts