![]() It is located at one of the foci of the Moon’s elliptical orbit, so is closer to one edge of the orbit than the other. ![]() Furthermore, the Earth is not at the very centre of the Moon’s orbit either. The eccentricity of the Moon’s orbit is 0.05. Mercury’s is the most eccentric with a value of 0.2. Venus’ orbit is the least eccentric out of all of the planets in our Solar System and closest to a circle, with a value of 0.007. In fact, a circle can be thought of as a special kind of ellipse that has an eccentricity of 0. The closer the eccentricity is to 0, the closer the orbit is to a circle. This is expressed by a number that is between 0 and 1. Astronomers can measure how near to a perfect circle an orbit is by calculating its 'eccentricity'. Some are very close, but they are all at least slightly elliptical in shape.
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