Achim, The period of time for the earth's perihelion to make a complete cycle around the sun relative to the stars is roughly 21,000 years, if I am interpreting the information at the site noted below correctly.
http://riemann.usno.navy.mil/AA/faq/docs/seasons_orbit.html Since the major axis includes the perihelion, you can estimate the angle between the major axis and the line connecting the position of the earth during the solstices by comparing the dates: perihelion happens around January 2 and the solstice happens around Dec 21, so about 12 days corresponds to roughly 12 degrees between the two. I am sure there are others on the list who can tell you the value more precisely as it probably changes a bit from year to year. Jeff Adkins Achim Loske wrote: > Dear Friends: > > The Earth travels around the Sun along an elliptic path. The mayor axis of > this ellipse is not fixed. It rotates. Do you know the angular velocity of > this movement? Do you know the angle between the mayor axis and the line > joining the summer and winter solstice? > > Thanks in advance. Regards, > > Achim Loske. > > Instituto de Fisica, UNAM > A.P. 1-1010 > Queretaro, Qro. > Mexico > Fax: 52 42 38 11 65 > Phone: 52 42 38 11 64 Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="Astronomer.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for Jeff Adkins Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="Astronomer.vcf" Attachment converted: Macintosh HD:Astronomer.vcf (TEXT/ttxt) (0001D142)
