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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. Earth orbits the Sun every 365.2564 mean solar days, or one sidereal year. With an apparent movement of the Sun in Earth's sky at a rate ...
One complete orbit takes 365.256 days (1 sidereal year), during which time Earth has traveled 940 million km (584 million mi). [2] 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.
where F g is the gravitational force acting between two objects, M E is the mass of the Earth, 5.9736 × 10 24 kg, m s is the mass of the satellite, r is the distance between the centers of their masses, and G is the gravitational constant, (6.674 28 ± 0.000 67) × 10 −11 m 3 kg −1 s −2. [68]
The astronomical unit (AU) is the canonical distance unit for the orbit around the Sun of the combined Earth-Moon system (based on the formerly best-known value). The corresponding time unit is the (sidereal) year)), and the mass is the total mass of the Sun (M ☉). [a]
Earth's circumference is the distance around Earth. Measured around the equator, it is 40,075.017 km (24,901.461 mi). Measured passing through the poles, the circumference is 40,007.863 km (24,859.734 mi). [1] Treating the Earth as a sphere, its circumference would be its single most important measurement. [2]
An Earth mass (denoted as M 🜨, M ♁ or M E, where 🜨 and ♁ are the astronomical symbols for Earth), is a unit of mass equal to the mass of the planet Earth. The current best estimate for the mass of Earth is M 🜨 = 5.9722 × 10 24 kg, with a relative uncertainty of 10 −4. [2] It is equivalent to an average density of 5515 kg/m 3.
For celestial objects in general, the orbital period is determined by a 360° revolution of one body around its primary, e.g. Earth around the Sun. Periods in astronomy are expressed in units of time, usually hours, days, or years. Its reciprocal is the orbital frequency, a kind of revolution frequency, in units of hertz.
Earth's movement along its nearly circular orbit while it is rotating once around its axis requires that Earth rotate slightly more than once relative to the fixed stars before the mean Sun can pass overhead again, even though it rotates only once (360°) relative to the mean Sun. [n 5] Multiplying the value in rad/s by Earth's equatorial ...