The earth revolves in an elliptical orbit around the sun in 365 days. What is the distance (in kilometers) covered by the earth during this period.
Answer
If we first approach Earth’s orbit through a circle, then the radius of that circle is 149 597 887.5 kilometers. Do this times 2 Pi, and you have the circumference of the orbit: 939 951 248.8 kilometers, so slightly less than a billion kilometers. The Earth travels that circumference at an average speed of approximately 29,783 kilometers per second. The earth makes 1 revolution around the sun in 365.256366 days.
In reality, the orbit is an ellipse with semimajor axis 152 097 701 km, and semiminor axis 147 098 074 km. The circumference of such an ellipse is 940 016 966 kilometers. So you see that the approximation by means of a circle is less than one ten-thousandth off. To put it simply: the circumference of the earth is 940 million kilometers.
Answered by
prof.dr. Paul Hellings
Department of Mathematics, Fac. IIW, KU Leuven
Old Market 13 3000 Leuven
https://www.kuleuven.be/
.