• Question: How far away is the sun from earth?

    Asked by killa to Colin, John, Kevin, Shikha, Triona on 11 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by hsarah.
    • Photo: Colin Johnston

      Colin Johnston answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      We’re about 150 million km from the Sun. Astronomers call this distance the Astronomical Unit (AU) and use it to measure distances in the Solar System. For example Jupiter is 5.2 AU from the Sun (5.2 x 150 million km).

    • Photo: Shikha Sharma

      Shikha Sharma answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      Hi Killa,

      The distance between the Earth and the sun isn’t exact because our planet has an elliptical orbit. This means the Earth travels around the sun in an oval or ellipse shape. So, the distance between the Earth and the sun varies slightly over the course of 365.25 days. The average distance (astronomical unit (AU)) between sun and Earth is about 93,000,000 miles (150 million kilometers).

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