The distance between the Sun & Earth is defined as an Astronomical Unit.

 

The distance between the Sun & Earth is defined as an Astronomical Unit.

Earth’s elliptical orbit around the Sun. The astronomical unit provides a convenient way to express and relate distances of objects in the solar system and to carry out various astronomical calculations. For example, stating that the planet Jupiter is 5.2 AU (5.2 Earth distances) from the Sun and that Pluto is nearly 40 AU gives ready comparisons of the distances of all three bodies.

In principle, the easiest way to determine the value of the astronomical unit would have been to measure the Earth-Sun distance directly by means of the parallax method. In this approach, two observers stationed at the ends of a long, accurately known baseline—ideally, a baseline as long as Earth’s diameter—would simultaneously record the position of the Sun against the essentially motionless background of the distant stars. Comparison of the observations would reveal an apparent shift, or angular (parallax) displacement, of the Sun against the remote stars. A simple trigonometric relationship incorporating this angular value and the baseline length then could be used to find the Earth-Sun distance. In practice, however, the method cannot be applied, because the Sun’s intense glare blots out the background stars needed for the parallax measurement.