Earth's orbit

[nb 1] Earth's orbital speed averages 29.78 km/s (19 mi/s; 107,208 km/h; 66,616 mph), which is fast enough to cover the planet's diameter in 7 minutes and the distance to the Moon in 4 hours.

Heliocentrism is the scientific model that first placed the Sun at the center of the Solar System and put the planets, including Earth, in its orbit.

This results in warmer average temperatures, as additional solar radiation reaches the surface.

When the north pole is tilted away from the Sun, the reverse is true and the weather is generally cooler.

The changing Earth-Sun distance results in an increase of about 7% in total solar energy reaching the Earth at perihelion relative to aphelion.

[12][nb 2] This is the maximal distance at which the Earth's gravitational influence is stronger than the more distant Sun and planets.

The following diagram illustrates the positions and relationship between the lines of solstices, equinoxes, and apsides of Earth's elliptical orbit.

[9] Mathematicians and astronomers (such as Laplace, Lagrange, Gauss, Poincaré, Kolmogorov, Vladimir Arnold, and Jürgen Moser) have searched for evidence for the stability of the planetary motions, and this quest led to many mathematical developments and several successive "proofs" of stability for the Solar System.

Earth at seasonal points in its orbit (not to scale)
Earth orbit (yellow) compared to a circle (gray)
Heliocentric Solar System
Heliocentrism (lower panel) in comparison to the geocentric model (upper panel), not to scale
Exaggerated illustration of Earth's elliptical orbit around the Sun, marking that the orbital extreme points ( apoapsis and periapsis ) are not the same as the four seasonal extreme points ( equinox and solstice )
The orientation of the motion of Earth, Moon and the Sun