The distance between the Earth and the sun is getting farther away, the impact is worrying

FLORIDA – Sun and Earth move in predictable ways and have a mutually influencing relationship. One of the facts, the average distance between Earth and the sun is not static from year to year.

On average, Earth is about 150 million kilometers from the Sun. However, according to NASA the orbit is not perfectly circular, slightly elliptical or oval in shape, this means that the Earth’s distance from the sun can be around 91.4 million to 94.5 million miles.

The movement of the Sun and Earth from time to time apparently affects the distance between them. As a result, the average stretch between the Earth and the sun slowly increases over time.

Also read; Makes goosebumps, this is the appearance of the face of the smoldering sun

This increasing distance has two main causes. One is that the sun loses mass (shrinks) and this causes tides on Earth.

The sun is constantly producing energy, so it is constantly losing mass. During the sun’s remaining lifetime, estimated to be about 5 billion more years, NASA predicts the Sun will lose about 0.1% of its total mass over time before it begins to completely die.

“While 0.1% may not sound like a lot, in fact it’s a lot of mass. Its mass (0.1%) is roughly the same as that of Jupiter. While Jupiter is estimated to be about 318 times the mass of Earth, “said Brian DiGiorgio, astronomer at the University of California at Santa Cruz told Live Science, Monday (8/8/2022).

Also read; The State of the Sun, Moon and Stars when Doomsday Happens

The sun’s activity also affects the tides on Earth, just like the moon’s gravitational pull. However, these tidal forces have a very weak effect on Earth’s orbit, estimated to cause the Earth to move about 0.0003 cm from the sun each year.

The strength of the gravitational attraction of an object is proportional to the amount of mass it has. As the sun loses mass, its pull toward Earth weakens, causing our planet to drift away at about 6 centimeters per year. “This is quite negligible, especially compared to the normal variation in Earth’s slightly elliptical orbital distance, about 3%,” DiGiorgio said.

–