A gravity related question

[argosy]

OK. here's what I asked my physics teacher at college.<br />I asked is it possible to test the speed of gravity by observing our own solar system. <br /><br />I started from the thought of what it would be if someone or something would actually move our Sun. Of course, the minute I imagined that, I realised that theres no practical way of doing that, only imaginery test and imaginery results, based on our known facts. <br /><br />So, I forgot about the problem for a while, until we studied the harmonic oscilators. <br />Heres the question. <br /><br />We know the speed, the mass and the orbit of the each planet in our system. Ok, there are numerous small bodies which I didn't calculate, because of the small masses and thus their combine mass should( I repeat should) be irrelevent. So, is there a way to calculate the speed of gravity by looking simply at orbits of the planets. We know they are irregular, because of the interaction each planet is having with the others. If we apply any given speed of gravitational waves, different orbits and paths should emerge. We should simply point at the closest to get the estimated speed of gravity.<br />I began writing a program in C language, but then I realised there's no way I could calculate so much differentials, not to mention the complexity of the program itself. Then I imagined a harmonic oscilator to describe the times and paths of planets in orbit. Again, too complex. I'm stuck and my head is burnin'.<br /><br />Any thoughts about the experiment. Is it doable? Was it done? Your ideas?

 

[mikeemmert]

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/gravity_speed_030116.html