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Earth orbits the Sun, making Earth the third-closest planet to the Sun and part of the inner Solar System. Earth's average orbital distance is about 150 million km (93 million mi), which is the basis for the astronomical unit (AU) and is equal to roughly 8.3 light minutes or 380 times Earth's distance to the Moon .
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System.It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light and infrared radiation with 10% at ultraviolet energies.
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 ...
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).
Solar System – the Sun and the objects that orbit it, including eight planets, the third planet closest to the Sun being Earth Earth's orbit – path through which the Earth travels around the Sun. The average distance between the Earth and the Sun is 149.60 million kilometers (92.96 million miles). [1]
The major features of Copernican theory are: Heavenly motions are uniform, eternal, and circular or compounded of several circles (epicycles). The center of the universe is near the Sun. Around the Sun, in order, are Mercury, Venus, the Earth and Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the fixed stars.
(110–210 Earth radii) 6.36×10 6 –1.27×10 7: The space dominated by Earth's magnetic field and its magnetotail, shaped by the solar wind. [17] Earth's orbit: 299.2 million km [b] 2 AU [c] 2.99×10 8: The average diameter of the orbit of the Earth relative to the Sun. Encompasses the Sun, Mercury and Venus. [18] Inner Solar System ~6.54 AU ...
The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star (G2V) based on spectral class, and it is informally designated as a yellow dwarf because its visible radiation is most intense in the yellow-green portion of the spectrum. It is actually white, but from the Earth's surface, it appears yellow because of atmospheric scattering of blue light. [9]