Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Ignoring the influence of other Solar System bodies, Earth's orbit, also called Earth's revolution, is an ellipse with the Earth–Sun barycenter as one focus with a current eccentricity of 0.0167. Since this value is close to zero, the center of the orbit is relatively close to the center of the Sun (relative to the size of the orbit).
Thus, the Sun occupies 0.00001% (1 part in 10 7) of the volume of a sphere with a radius the size of Earth's orbit, whereas Earth's volume is roughly 1 millionth (10 −6) that of the Sun. Jupiter, the largest planet, is 5.2 AU from the Sun and has a radius of 71,000 km (0.00047 AU; 44,000 mi), whereas the most distant planet, Neptune, is 30 AU ...
An orbit will be Sun-synchronous when the precession rate ρ = dΩ / dt equals the mean motion of the Earth about the Sun n E, which is 360° per sidereal year (1.990 968 71 × 10 −7 rad/s), so we must set n E = ΔΩ E / T E = ρ = ΔΩ / T , where T E is the Earth orbital period, while T is the period of the spacecraft ...
Whenever the Carrington prime meridian (the line of 0° Carrington longitude) passes the Sun's central meridian as seen from Earth, a new Carrington rotation begins. These rotations are numbered sequentially, with Carrington rotation number 1 starting on 9 November 1853.
Solar System – gravitationally bound system comprising the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of those objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest eight are the planets (including Earth), with the remainder being significantly smaller objects, such as dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies.
The shortest day is two weeks away, but the earliest sunsets are here. The earliest sunset (Dec. 4) and latest sunrise (Jan. 11) are 38 days apart.
According to a 2008 article, Earth's orbit will have initially expanded to at most 1.5 AU (220 million km; 140 million mi) due to the Sun's loss of mass. However, Earth's orbit will then start shrinking due to tidal forces (and, eventually, drag from the lower chromosphere) so that it is engulfed by the Sun during the tip of the red-giant ...
At the equator, the solar rotation period is 24.47 days. This is called the sidereal rotation period, and should not be confused with the synodic rotation period of 26.24 days, which is the time for a fixed feature on the Sun to rotate to the same apparent position as viewed from Earth (the Earth's orbital rotation is in the same direction as the Sun's rotation).