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astronomical unit (AU)
1) Mean distance between the Earth and the Sun: 1.495985 × 1011 m.
2) The AU is the preferred unit for distances within the solar system. Mercury, the innermost planet, lies on average 0.39 AU from the Sun; Pluto, normally the farthest planet, lies on average 39.5 AU from the Sun.
3) The mean distance between the Earth and the Sun. The astronomical unit is defined as the length of the radius of the unperturbed circular orbit of a body of negligible mass moving around the Sun with a sidereal angular velocity of 0.017202098950 radian per day of 86400 ephemeris seconds. AU = 1.496 × 1013 cm ≈ 500 lt-sec.
4) The mean distance from the earth to the sun, equal to 92.81 million miles or 499.012 light-seconds.
5) The radius of a circular orbit in which a body of negligible mass, and free of perturbations, would revolve around the Sun in 2π / k days, where k is the Gaussian gravitational constant. This is slightly less than the semi-major axis of the Earth's orbit.
- Part of Speech: noun
- Synonym(s):
- Blossary:
- Industry/Domain: Astronomy
- Category: General astronomy
- Company: Caltech
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