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15 December 2008 15:01
- the mean distance from the sun to the Earth (approximately)
- the mean is used because the distance is not constant; all the planet's orbits are slightly elliptical
- 149,597,870.691 km or 92,955,807.3 miles
- early estimates of the earth-sun distance were 8 million km (Tycho Brahe), and 24 million km (Johannes Kepler).
- In 1672, Giovanni Cassini measured the distance as 140 million kilometers (87 million miles), which is pretty darn close, considering
- Jupiter is about 4.949 AU from the sun at its closest; and about 5.465 AU from the sun at its farthest
- 1 light year is 63,239.6717 AU
- You can convert distances into AUs using Google, in the Google search field, type "xxx uuu in AU" where uuu is the unit of measure, and xxx is the value - for example, typing "384,403 km in au" gives you the mean earth-moon distance in AU, or 0.00256957312
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Orion Telescopes
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