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The Earth's orbit varies between nearly circular and mildly elliptical (its eccentricity varies). When the orbit is more elongated, there is more variation in the distance between the Earth and the Sun, and in the amount of solar radiation, at different times in the year.
The eccentricity of Earth's orbit is currently about 0.016 7; its orbit is nearly circular. Neptune's and Venus's have even lower eccentricities of 0.008 6 and 0.006 8 respectively, the latter being the least orbital eccentricity of any planet in the Solar System.
Variations in the amount of incident solar energy drive changes in the climate of the Earth, and are recognised as a key factor in the timing of initiation and termination of glaciations. While there is a Milankovitch cycle in the range of 100,000 years, related to Earth's orbital eccentricity , its contribution to variation in insolation is ...
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. Since this value ...
The eccentricity ε is the coefficient of variation between r min and r max: ... The eccentricity of the orbit of the Earth makes the time from the March equinox to ...
Molniya orbit: A semi-synchronous variation of a Tundra orbit. For Earth this means an orbital period of just under 12 hours. Such a satellite spends most of its time over two designated areas of the planet. An inclination of 63.4° is normally used to keep the perigee shift small. [15]
As a result, the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit contributes a periodic variation which is (in the first-order approximation) a sine wave with: amplitude: 7.66 minutes; period: one year; zero points: perihelion (at the beginning of January) and aphelion (beginning of July) extreme values: early April (negative) and early October (positive)
A highly elliptical orbit (HEO) is an elliptic orbit with high eccentricity, usually referring to one around Earth. Examples of inclined HEO orbits include Molniya orbits , named after the Molniya Soviet communication satellites which used them, and Tundra orbits .