elliptical orbit and earth's axis

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kevcon

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Can anyone tell me where we are in our orbit around the sun, I understand that our orbit is elliptical and takes approximately 104,000 years to complete, so where exactly are we within the orbit. Also the wobble in Earth's axis takes 26,000 years to go through a complete 360 degree wobble but where are we within the wobble are we still tilting closer to the sun or are we tilting away from the sun, and where can I find this information. I beleive that this info correlates to when we have global warming and also ice ages.
Cheers Kev
 
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MeteorWayne

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You are completely off base. The earth orbits the sun in about 365.25 days....i.e. 1 year.

The precession (the change in direction of the ~ 23.5 degree tilt of the orbit) takes ~ 26,000 years.

Right now, the axis of the earth points toward Polaris. That's why it is called Polaris. In a few tens of thousands of years it will point toward Vega. You and I will be long dead before then :)
 
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3488

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MeteorWayne":1gnveezt said:
You are completely off base. The earth orbits the sun in about 365.25 days....i.e. 1 year.

The precession (the change in direction of the ~ 23.5 degree tilt of the orbit) takes ~ 26,000 years.

Right now, the axis of the earth points toward Polaris. That's why it is called Polaris. In a few tens of thousands of years it will point toward Vega. You and I will be long dead before then :)

Also there is a slight rocking on the axis from 19 degrees to 24 degrees every 41,000 years, & were are just past the maximum with the tilt gradually decreasing.

The eccentricity of Earth's orbit also increases & decreases slightly over a 93,000 year period.

I agree, the OP was way off base.

Andrew Brown.
 
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kevcon

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thanks Andrew for youre input, meteor wayne, I do know that the earth orbits the sun once a year, I was referring to the eccentricity of the orbit.
Andrew where can I find this info?
Kev
 
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3488

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MeteorWayne":13wvdtmo said:
http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/ice_ages/eccentricity_graph.html

Thanks Wayne, I was going to find that, but you've already done it.

Hi Kev,

That graph Wayne linked to is pretty well self explanatory. This is a very interesting topic for sure.

Andrew Brown.
 
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MeteorWayne

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Not also that it is not exactly periodic; the max's and min's timing as well as amplitude varies from cycle to cycle due to gravitational interactions with all of the planets.
 
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