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ElijahD · Mar 16, 2009, 06:18 PM

What is the distance (in miles) of the earth's orbit around the sun?

Capuchin · Mar 17, 2009, 01:53 AM

The mean orbital radius is close to 150,000,000 km, approximate the orbit as circular and use this to calculate the circumference. Then convert to miles.

sarnian · Mar 17, 2009, 04:04 AM

Hello ElijahD

Although the answer you received is correct, the earth orbit is not perfectly circular : it's eliptical. So there is more to it ! The minimum distance is 146 M Km (91 M Miles) and the maximum distance is 152 M Km (or 94,5 M Miles).

ebaines · Mar 17, 2009, 07:35 AM

Finding the exact solution to the lenth of the perimeter of an ellipse is a very difficult problem. You can approximate it as:

$<br /> P \approx \pi * \sqrt {2(a^2+b^2) - (a-b)^2 /2 }<br />$

where a and b are the semi-major and semi-minor axis lengths. If you do the math you'll find that Capuchin's approximation technique gets you within 0.5% of what this formula gives - for most purposes this is probably "good enough," especially given the uncertinty in the rounded off numbers that Sarnian provided for the semi-major and semi-minor axis lengths.