The Earth’s orbit around the sun is an ellipse with the sun at one focus and eccentricity e ≈ 0.0167 . The length of the semimajor axis (half the major axis) is defined to be 1 astronomical unit
(AU). The vertices of the elliptical orbit are given special names: ‘aphelion’ is the vertex farthest from
the sun, and the ‘perihelion’ is the vertex closest to the sun.
a. Find the distance in AU between the perihelion and the sun.
b. Find the distance in AU between the aphelion and the sun.