distancia de mercurio al sol
distancia de mercurio al sol

Distancia de mercurio al sl:

Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, and on average, it is 57 million kilometers (35 million miles) away. That’s less than 40 percent of the distance from Earth to the sun. Mercury’s orbit is elliptical, though, and its distance from the sun varies by 24 million kilometers (15 million miles).

Elliptical Orbit

Unlike Earth, which circles the sun in a nearly circular orbit, Mercury orbits in an ellipse. The eccentricity of Mercury’s orbit, which is a measure of how much it differs from a circular orbit, is 0.2056. That’s more than 10 times greater than the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit, which is 0.0167. In fact, it’s the most eccentric orbit of any of the eight planets in the solar system.

Nearest and Farthest Distances

Unlike a circle, an ellipse does not have a center; Instead, it has two foci, and in the case of Mercury’s orbit, the sun occupies one of them. When Mercury is closest to the sun, it is only 46 million kilometers (29 million miles) distant, but when the planet is rounding the opposite focus of its orbit, it is 70 million kilometers (43 million miles) away from the sun. Because Mercury’s poles are not tilted relative to its orbit, temperature differences caused by its changing distance to the sun at the closest the planet has to experiencing seasons.

Mercury is the planet closest to the Sun, at an average distance from the Sun of about 58 million kilometers. By comparison, Earth is about 150 million kilometers from the Sun, while Pluto averages an enormous 5.9 billion kilometers away! If you were standing on Mercury, the Sun would appear much larger than it does on Earth. And since the Sun-Mercury distance varies between Mercury’s orbit, the Sun would appear larger at some times than at others. Indeed, even when Mercury is farthest from the Sun, it’s like having nearly 11 Suns in the sky.