Berlinerboy45
This is in regard to distance from the sun.
The question really should have been more specific. In the early formation of the solar system has earth ever been in a different orbit ? Since the length of a day on earth, billions of years ago was as short as 16 hrs. Was the earth in the same orbit around the sun then?
1 Answer
west-bus
The earth orbits the sun in an elliptical orbit and the moon orbits the earth with the same kind of orbit. Looking down from the north pole, the earth spins in a counterclockwise direction on an imaginary line called its axis once every day. This accounts for the fact that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The earth’s axis is tilted with respect to the plane of its orbit at an angle of about 23.4 degrees. If we position ourselves high above the north pole, we would see that the earth orbits the sun in a counterclockwise motion, coming to the same position among the stars every 365.26 earth days. We would also see that the moon also orbits the earth in a counterclockwise motion.
The average distance from the earth to the sun, the semimajor axis of its orbit, is 149,597,890 km. This distance was not known until recently and it is called the astronomical unit or AU.
For a more interesting explanation read on : The Earth, Sun, and Moon
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