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ellipse

An ellipse can be either a long cigar-type shape, or almost circular, depending on whether the eccentricity is large or small. The distance along the length is called the major axis, while the width is the minor axis.

The planets' orbits have small eccentricity, and the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit is 1/60 which is very close to a circle but with the Sun off-centre.

The distance is maximum and minimum at either end of the major axis, because the Sun is 2.5 million km off-centre, so the distance varies from 147.1 to 152.1 million km with an average of 149.6 million km.

The major axis of the ellipse is 2 x 149.6 million kilometres, while the minor axis is 2 x 149.58 million km, which is only very slightly less, so the orbit is 99.99% circular.

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12y ago

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