Astronomy Fun Fact #54

Moiya McTier

Jun 7, 20191 min read

The planet in our solar system with the most eccentric (meaning least circular) orbit is Mercury.

Eccentricity is measured on a scale from 0 (perfectly circular) to 1 (escaping the system). Earth's eccentricity is 0.017 and Mercury's is 0.205.

The picture shows how both Earth and Mercury compare to circular orbits at their positions in the solar system.

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