astronomical unit
Noun
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Noun
astronomical unit (plural astronomical units)
- (astronomy) 149,597,870,700 metres, the approximate mean distance from the Earth to the Sun (the semi-major axis of Earth's orbit), (symbol AU), used to measure distances in the solar system.
- Now this big quarter of a Jupiter mass planet is in an orbit about Zeta 2 Reticuli which lasts 18.9 days and has a Semi-Major Axis of 0.14 Astronomical Unit (AU). For comparison Mercury has a Semi-Major Axis of 0.387 AU equal to 36 million miles and Earth has a Semi-Major Axis of 1.00 AU equal to 92.9 million miles. Now if we assume that this newly discovered planet, which we will name Reticulum 1 in accordance with Bob Lazar’s convention, is the closest one to Zeta 2 Reticuli (it’s hard to imagine a closer one), then following Bode’s Law (the law which states each planet is about twice the distance from it’s sun as its inner neighbor) Reticulum 2 should be at 0.28 AU, Reticulum 3 should be at 0.56 AU and, INTERESTINGLY, Reticulum 4 would be at 1.12 AU in between the Earth’s 1.00 AU and Mars’s 1.52 AU, well within the “life-zone” of a G class star!
- A.U., a.u. common abbreviation
- AU common unit symbol
- au IAU recommended unit symbol
- ua BIPM recommended unit symbol
- ㍳ Unicode unit symbol glyph
- a. u., A. U. formerly common abbreviation
- French: unité astronomique
- German: Astronomische Einheit
- Italian: unità astronomica
- Portuguese: unidade astronômica
- Russian: астрономи́ческая едини́ца
- Spanish: unidad astronómica
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003