Question

How does the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit compare with the eccentricities of ellipses 1-3 above? Is Earth’s orbit closer to the shape of a circle or an ellipse? Explain your answer using scientific reasoning.

Answer 1

We know that the closer the value of the eccentricity is to zero, the closer the figure is to a circle. The Earths' orbit is very close to that of a circle since it is very close to zero. Ellipses 1, 2, and 3 are not very close to zero, so they are not close to having a circular shape. They are more elliptical in nature.