![]() ![]() It is located at one of the foci of the Moon’s elliptical orbit, so is closer to one edge of the orbit than the other. Furthermore, the Earth is not at the very centre of the Moon’s orbit either. The eccentricity of the Moon’s orbit is 0.05. Mercury’s is the most eccentric with a value of 0.2. Venus’ orbit is the least eccentric out of all of the planets in our Solar System and closest to a circle, with a value of 0.007. In fact, a circle can be thought of as a special kind of ellipse that has an eccentricity of 0. The closer the eccentricity is to 0, the closer the orbit is to a circle. This is expressed by a number that is between 0 and 1. Astronomers can measure how near to a perfect circle an orbit is by calculating its 'eccentricity'. Some are very close, but they are all at least slightly elliptical in shape. ![]()
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