Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The point towards which the Earth in its solar orbit is directed at any given instant is known as the "apex of the Earth's way". [4] [5] From a vantage point above the north pole of either the Sun or Earth, Earth would appear to revolve in a counterclockwise direction around the Sun. From the same vantage point, both the Earth and the Sun would ...
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 .
In gravitationally bound systems, the orbital speed of an astronomical body or object (e.g. planet, moon, artificial satellite, spacecraft, or star) is the speed at which it orbits around either the barycenter (the combined center of mass) or, if one body is much more massive than the other bodies of the system combined, its speed relative to the center of mass of the most massive body.
A data set which describes the global average of the Earth's surface curvature is called the mean Earth Ellipsoid. It refers to a theoretical coherence between the geographic latitude and the meridional curvature of the geoid. The latter is close to the mean sea level, and therefore an ideal Earth ellipsoid has the same volume as the geoid.
For example, the Sun is north of the celestial equator for about 185 days of each year, and south of it for about 180 days. [7] The variation of orbital speed accounts for part of the equation of time. [8] Because of the movement of Earth around the Earth–Moon center of mass, the apparent path of the Sun wobbles slightly, with a period of ...
Perihelion currently occurs around 3 January, so the Earth's greater velocity shortens winter and autumn in the northern hemisphere, and summer and spring in the southern hemisphere. Summer in the northern hemisphere is 4.66 days longer than winter, and spring is 2.9 days longer than autumn. [15]
Gravity on the Earth's surface varies by around 0.7%, from 9.7639 m/s 2 on the Nevado Huascarán mountain in Peru to 9.8337 m/s 2 at the surface of the Arctic Ocean. [6] In large cities, it ranges from 9.7806 m/s 2 [ 7 ] in Kuala Lumpur , Mexico City , and Singapore to 9.825 m/s 2 in Oslo and Helsinki .
Sun path, sometimes also called day arc, refers to the daily (sunrise to sunset) and seasonal arc-like path that the Sun appears to follow across the sky as the Earth rotates and orbits the Sun. The Sun's path affects the length of daytime experienced and amount of daylight received along a certain latitude during a given season.