Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Distances between the planets in the Solar System are often measured in astronomical units (AU), defined as the average distance between the Sun and Earth, some 1.5 × 10 8 kilometers (93 million miles). Venus, the closest planet to Earth is (at closest approach) 0.28 AU away. Neptune, the farthest planet from the Sun, is 29.8 AU away.
The parsec is defined in terms of the astronomical unit, is used to measure distances beyond the scope of the Solar System and is about 3.26 light-years: 1 pc = 1 au/tan(1″) [6] [61] Proxima Centauri: 268 000: ± 126 Distance to the nearest star to the Solar System — Galactic Centre of the Milky Way: 1 700 000 000 —
For comparisons with the light travel distance of the astronomical objects listed below, the age of the universe since the Big Bang is currently estimated as 13.787±0.020 Gyr. [1] Distances to remote objects, other than those in nearby galaxies, are nearly always inferred by measuring the cosmological redshift of their light. By their nature ...
The Solar System remains in a relatively stable, slowly evolving state by following isolated, gravitationally bound orbits around the Sun. [28] Although the Solar System has been fairly stable for billions of years, it is technically chaotic, and may eventually be disrupted. There is a small chance that another star will pass through the Solar ...
The closest exoplanets are those found orbiting the star closest to the Solar System, which is Proxima Centauri 4.25 light-years away. The first confirmed exoplanet discovered in the Proxima Centauri system was Proxima Centauri b, in 2016. HD 219134 (21.6 ly) has six exoplanets, the highest number discovered for any star within this range.
Pioneer 10 – launched in 1972, flew past Jupiter in 1973 and is heading in the direction of Aldebaran (65 light years away) in the constellation of Taurus.Contact was lost in January 2003, and it is estimated to have passed 134 astronomical units (AU; one AU is roughly the average distance between Earth and the Sun: 150 million kilometers (93 million miles)).
Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to detect sodium and aluminum ions in the solar wind, as well as helium in the inner Solar System. [66] In November 1972, Pioneer 10 encountered Jupiter's enormous (compared to Earth) magnetosphere and would pass in and out of it and its heliosphere 17 times charting its interaction with the solar wind. [ 66 ]
One particularly distant body is 90377 Sedna, which was discovered in November 2003.It has an extremely eccentric orbit that takes it to an aphelion of 937 AU. [2] It takes over 10,000 years to orbit, and during the next 50 years it will slowly move closer to the Sun as it comes to perihelion at a distance of 76 AU from the Sun. [3] Sedna is the largest known sednoid, a class of objects that ...