Mass loss

[hannorein]

Going through the constants in the JPL files, I just noticed that we're not taking account the sun's mass loss. The size of the effect is ~6e-14 per year, so it might be important for some calculations. Any thoughts?

[matthewholman]

That's a really interesting consideration, @hannorein. I wonder if that constant is actually used. Of course, it would be fairly straightforward to implement mass loss.

[dmhernan]

Hmm, the fact that there is a constant of 6e-14 (in Solar mass, I assume) is interesting. I thought the mass loss in the solar wind can vary by large amounts, e.g., possibly orders of magnitude when the Solar cycle is changing, and is not something easy to predict.