eccentricity
2
9.1
- noun
- /ˌɛksɛnˈtrɪsɪti/
- Specialized
:
excentricidad
- The major ice age climate cycles are controlled by the sun, Earth orbital eccentricity, and the Earth's obliquity and precession.
- orbital eccentricity
- eccentricity of their orbits
- initial eccentricity
Examples
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But we're on course to take advantage of the orbital eccentricity and meet it at its perihelion.
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So whenever the eccentricity is less than one, we have an ellipse.
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None of the gas giants in our solar system has an eccentricity of more than 0.06.
Academic text (1999) -
Its orbit was close to Earth's with no inclination to speak of and just a little eccentricity.
Fiction book (2001) -
In our solar system, Pluto has the largest eccentricity at 0.25, with Mercury a close second at 0.21.
Academic text (1999) -
The eccentricity of the Earth's orbit causes variation in its distance from the Sun during the year.
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In mathematics, the eccentricity of an ellipse is always less than one.
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The scientist explained that the eccentricity of a comet's orbit can lead to long periods of invisibility.
Synonyms
How flattened a round object like a planet or galaxy is
How much a round shape is longer in one direction than the other
How Eccentric
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Eccentricity comes from parts that mean 'out' and 'center' — the prefix ec- means 'out' and centric is like center. So in math and physics, eccentricity is a number that shows how far a curve or an orbit is 'off the center', which is why a low eccentricity means almost a perfect circle.