Question

What is the length of earth’s orbit?

Answer 1

Hint: In order to solve this question, we need to understand the definition of orbit which states that it is the locus of a path followed by planetary object while revolving around another planetary object like earth round sun, moon round earth and so on. So different planets have different orbit shapes and sizes like earth has a nearly elliptical orbit around the sun which is not fixed in one plane. Earth rotates around the sun due to the gravitational space curve which binds the earth to move around the sun.

Complete answer:
According to astronomical data, the Orbit length of earth is $149.60 \times {10^6}\,km$.The time taken by earth to revolve around the sun to complete one cycle is $365.256\,days$.Now the most important thing is sun is not as center of elliptical orbit rather Earth and sun have barycenter and eccentricity value close to $0.0167$ which is very close to $0$ so we can assume sun to be at center of earth elliptical orbit. These results were calculated from Klepner equation of orbits while in history the Heliocentrism model was followed according to which sun is at center and earth orbit is circular one while there is also one theory of geocentrism which places earth at center.

Hence, the length of earth’s orbit is $149.60 \times {10^6}\,km$.

Note:It should be remembered that earth's average orbital speed is $29.78\,km{\sec ^{ - 1}}$ with which it covers earth’s orbital distance. Also the day of $365.256\,days$ is known as the sidereal year. Also due to motion of earth and its axis tilt causes four seasons on earth primarily known as summer, winter, spring and monsoon.