the maximum distance the earth is from the sun is 152000000 km and the minimum distance is 147000000 km. write an absolute value equation where d represents maximum and minimum distance between earth and the sun in millions of km.

Question

wolf1728 · Answer

Just thought I'd check those distances with Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth and then I rounded those to 4 significant figures: aphelion (maximum) distance = 152,100,000 km semi-major axis (average) distance = 149,600,000 km perihelion (minimum) distance = 147,100,000 km It seems you didn't explain things completely but I'll attempt an answer. In 2013, Earth's closest approach to the Sun (about 147,100,000 km) occurred January 2nd. The distance between the closest and furthest approach equals 5,000,000 km which repeats every 6 months. That is to say, the Earth Sun distance changes by about 5,000,000 km every 6 months or about 833,333 km every month. I can write an equation that will generate the Earth Sun distance for the month numbers 1 through 7. Let's call the perihelion distance 147,100,000 'p' and the monthly change in distance 833,000 'n' so we have Earth-Sun distance = p + [(month # -1 * n)] 147,100,000 147,100,000 0 833,333 147,933,333 147,100,000 1 833,333 148,766,667 147,100,000 2 833,333 149,600,000 147,100,000 3 833,333 150,433,333 147,100,000 4 833,333 151,266,667 147,100,000 5 833,333 152,100,000 147,100,000 6 833,333 152,933,333 147,100,000 7 833,333 153,766,667 147,100,000 8 833,333 154,600,000 147,100,000 9 833,333 155,433,333 147,100,000 10 833,333 156,266,667 147,100,000 11 833,333 I can't find a way for the formula to work for months beyond July, (month # 7 OR month #-1 = 6)