Earth’s orbit around the Sun is not circular, but an ellipse that is slightly elongated with an eccentricity of 0.017. (An eccentricity of 0 is a circle, while the dwarf planet Pluto has a relatively ...

Earth rotates once in about 24 hours with respect to the Sun, but once every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds with respect to other distant stars. Scientists call this difference crucial to ...

At the start of the year, Earth will quietly reach a milestone in its orbit around the sun. Known as perihelion, this is the moment when our planet is closer to the sun than at any other point in the ...

Earth’s orbit around the Sun isn’t a perfect circle—it’s slightly elliptical. Each year, around July 2 or 3, Earth reaches its farthest point from the Sun, known as aphelion. Around January 2 or 3, ...

Earth has a newly discovered—albeit temporary—companion in its journey around the sun. In research published this month in Research Notes of the AAS, a non-peer reviewed publication from the American ...