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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 rotation. Earth's rotation or Earth's spin is the rotation of planet Earth around its own axis, as well as changes in the orientation of the rotation axis in space. Earth rotates eastward, in prograde motion. As viewed from the northern polar star Polaris, Earth turns counterclockwise . The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North ...
Solar rotation varies with latitude. The Sun is not a solid body, but is composed of a gaseous plasma. Different latitudes rotate at different periods. The source of this differential rotation is an area of current research in solar astronomy. [1] The rate of surface rotation is observed to be the fastest at the equator (latitude φ = 0°) and ...
Heliographic coordinate systems are used to identify locations on the Sun's surface. The two most commonly used systems are the Stonyhurst and Carrington systems. They both define latitude as the angular distance from the solar equator, but differ in how they define longitude. In Stonyhurst coordinates, the longitude is fixed for an observer on ...
The solar azimuth angle is the azimuth (horizontal angle with respect to north) of the Sun's position. [1] [2] [3] This horizontal coordinate defines the Sun 's relative direction along the local horizon, whereas the solar zenith angle (or its complementary angle solar elevation) defines the Sun's apparent altitude .
The Sun's path affects the length of daytime experienced and amount of daylight received along a certain latitude during a given season. The relative position of the Sun is a major factor in the heat gain of buildings and in the performance of solar energy systems. [1] Accurate location-specific knowledge of sun path and climatic conditions is ...
Geodesy. The Earth-centered, Earth-fixed coordinate system (acronym ECEF ), also known as the geocentric coordinate system, is a cartesian spatial reference system that represents locations in the vicinity of the Earth (including its surface, interior, atmosphere, and surrounding outer space) as X, Y, and Z measurements from its center of mass.
An animation showing a low eccentricity orbit (near-circle, in red), and a high eccentricity orbit (ellipse, in purple). In celestial mechanics, an orbit (also known as orbital revolution) is the curved trajectory of an object [1] such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such ...