Sure, science writers know something about science.   They just don't know much about writing. 

Sciense fiction is one thing, writing articles about scientific discovery is well "28 days to make its orbit which is very similar to our own one-month loops around the sun." I read that three times to make sure my flue didn't make me read what I thought I understood I saw while reading.

I sympathize with the sentiment that that writer should be smacked over the head with a book. Although at this point I'm probably delirious and there isn't one, in which case, there should be one. I wrote two very big astronomy papers in high-school, and made sure that every detail was correct. And mind you, this wasn't in the internet age... well it was, but there wasn't any in my land. Everything was researched by hand and written by hand with a pen. And yet, with all the resources of the internet, people make mistakes as big as that. If I wasn't concentrating so much on breathing properly, I would ... no idea, this cold is just murder on me, and it's going to get worse.

Well, I am a fan of comedy...

Oh, come now...everyone knows the Sun revolves around the Earth....heck I'm sure there's a bunch of people in that God vs Science thread that will swear that's the case.

Heck no.....afterall tables have 4 legs simply because the earth is flat....

Actually....before someone gets all worried....4 legs can be stable on a sphere....but it's things like 6 leg billiard tables that prove the earth is flat....

Um....shouldn't NASA know?

Ah, Grasshopper, you progress well.

You're supposed to move the pebbles from one end to the other and watch them not move because the Earth is flat and if it were round the pebbles would roll away.

Well technically speaking neither is right. Which means ~100% of the world population has no clue.

Both the sun and earth as well as the other planets revolve around  the center of mass of the solar system. which happens to be very close to the sun due to the fact that the sun is 99+% of the mass in the solar system .

The fact that stars do orbit the center mass as well is actually what makes a discovery like this possible using doppler spectroscopy.

In this illustration the big one would be a star (the sun is a star for you aspiring writers out there) and the small one would be a planet. The + is the center of mass.

This has been another insightful lesson brought to you by Fistalis the science clown.. cause if your not learning it right your doing it wrong dumb#$%.

Yes.. but a more complex illustration doesn't change anything. What in my post are you disputing? Notice your illustration doesn't show the movement of the sun.. and assumes the sun is stationary. Which muddles the facts.

Of course the center mass is going to fluctuate with movement of the sun and planets (aka said mass). Its not that the center of mass itself is moving but that the mass itself is changing position, altering where the center of mass is. But that doesn't change the fact that the sun and planets orbit the center mass.

Personally I think the illustration I chose was adequate for illustrating my point. Since the center of mass compared to the suns position isn't important when speaking of the fact that the sun and planets all orbit the center of mass.

 A better illustration would be the suns position in relation to the center of mass.. showing how its orbit is effected by it. Rather than an illustration which assumes the sun is stationary. That particular illustration even gives the idea of the age old myth that the sun is the center of the solar system. Which technically speaking it isn't. While the illustration is technically correct.. it gives the wrong idea, which might lead aspiring writers to make bad assumptions and misinform everyone else.