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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 .
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).
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 9.78×10 8: Encompasses the Sun, the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars) and the asteroid belt.
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 ...
This is because the distance between Earth and the Sun is not fixed (it varies between 0.983 289 8912 and 1.016 710 3335 au) and, when Earth is closer to the Sun , the Sun's gravitational field is stronger and Earth is moving faster along its orbital path. As the metre is defined in terms of the second and the speed of light is constant for all ...
On Christmas Eve 1968, American astronaut Bill Anders quickly snapped a photo of the Earth as he and his Apollo 8 crew members became the first human beings to orbit the moon.
File:Sun, Earth size comparison.jpg Without text Not for voting. The Earth and moon, shown to scale including correct relative distance. An amazing picture of the sun and the earth. The thing that I like the most is that you can get a feeling of size and scale in the solar system when you look at how tiny the earth looks besides it. It really ...
Viewed from Earth as it orbits the Sun, the apparent rotational period of the Sun at its equator is about 28 days. [47] Viewed from a vantage point above its north pole, the Sun rotates counterclockwise around its axis of spin. [d] [48] A survey of solar analogs suggest the early Sun was rotating up to ten times faster than it does today. This ...