A Conversation for Astronomical Units

Technicality.

Post 1

shagbark

since Our orbit is an ellipse not a circle, somebody came up with a formal definition to keep the AU at a more fixed number
Their definition is:
The radius of an unperturbed circular orbit of a massless body that would revolve about the Sun in one year.


Technicality.

Post 2

Gnomon - time to move on

In other words, the radius that the Earth's orbit would have if it were circular.


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