Hobbies And Interests
Distance from the Sun
Like all planets in our solar system, the path Jupiter follows around the sun is not a perfect circle. Featuring what is known as an eccentricity of 0.048, this orbit sweeps out into a slightly elongated oval. Jupiter's average distance from the sun--what astronomers call its semi-major axis--is 778 million kilometers. This is roughly 5.2 times as far as the average distance from the Earth to the sun, a unit of measurement known as an astronomical unit (AU). At its closest point, known as its perihelion, Jupiter's distance from the sun is 741 million kilometers, or 4.95 AU. At its furthest point, known as the aphelion, Jupiter is as far away as 817 million kilometers, or 5.46 AU, from our sun.
Distance from the Earth
Jupiter's closest distance to the Earth is about 629 kilometers. The very longest distance between the two planets is about 970 kilometers.
The Jupiter Year
Jupiter completes a single orbit around the sun once every 11.86 Earth years, which means a year on Jupiter is about 4,331 of our days. Jupiter does not experience seasonal changes throughout its trip around the sun because, unlike Earth, the tilt of its axis is only 3.13 degrees, which is too insignificant to bring about any dynamic changes.
Incline
The plane on which Jupiter orbits does not quite match up with the rest of the solar system. Compared with the equator of the sun, Jupiter orbits on an incline of 6.09 degrees. Compared with Earth's orbit, Jupiter is on an incline of 1.31 degrees.
Center of Gravity with the Sun
Jupiter is the only planet in the solar system that shares a center of gravity with the sun that lies outside the sun's volume. That is to say, it is the only planet massive enough and far enough away that the mass of these two bodies behaves as if it is concentrated in a point of empty space. Jupiter and the sun, therefore, both simultaneously rotate around a point that sits above the sun's surface by 7 percent of the sun's radius.