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Earth orbits the Sun at an average distance of 149.60 million km (92.96 million mi), or 8.317 light-minutes, [ 1 ] in a counterclockwise direction as viewed from above the Northern Hemisphere. 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 ...
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 .
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 ...
Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 space probe from an unprecedented distance of approximately 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles, 40.5 AU), as part of that day's Family Portrait series of images of the Solar System.
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: 8.99: Encompasses the Sun, the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars) and the asteroid belt. Cited distance is the 2:1 resonance with Jupiter, which marks the outer limit of the asteroid belt.
When Venus lies between Earth and the Sun in inferior conjunction, it makes the closest approach to Earth of any planet at an average distance of 41 million km (25 million mi). [4] [note 3] [169] Because of the decreasing eccentricity of Earth's orbit, the minimum distances will become greater over tens of thousands of years.
The percentage columns show the distance from the orbit compared to the semimajor axis. E.g. for the Moon, L 1 is 326 400 km from Earth's center, which is 84.9% of the Earth–Moon distance or 15.1% "in front of" (Earthwards from) the Moon; L 2 is located 448 900 km from Earth's center, which is 116.8% of the Earth–Moon distance or 16.8% ...
Mercury has the most eccentric orbit of all the planets in the Solar System; its eccentricity is 0.21 with its distance from the Sun ranging from 46,000,000 to 70,000,000 km (29,000,000 to 43,000,000 mi). It takes 87.969 Earth days to complete an orbit.