[mikexstudios]

Wolfram alpha for comparison: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=distance+from+sun+to+e...

[vinchuco]

let's not be so quick to be so harsh. Remember the glee WolfAlpha provides us with their interactive visualizations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slop2Vi8cKE

[binarycrusader]

Bing also seems to give something sensible.

[d--b]

WA thinks the distance is 0.9843 AU...

[chungy]

That's actually correct at the time of this post :)

AU is an average distance from Earth to the Sun. Since Earth's orbit is elliptical, it will be closer than 1AU at certain times of year, and further than 1AU at other times in the year.

[brianpgordon]

That's because it is. The Earth's orbit is elliptical, varying between 0.983 and 1.017 AU at its minor and major axes.

[thecompilr]

That is probably the current distance. 1 AU is the mean distance.

[Someone]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_unit:

”Originally conceived as the average of Earth's aphelion and perihelion”

https://www.britannica.com/science/astronomical-unit:

”a unit of length effectively equal to the average, or mean, distance between Earth and the Sun”

I wondered whether the two are equal. A bit to my surprise, they are (http://www.farmingdale.edu/faculty/sheldon-gordon/RecentArti...)

(If we take into account that earth moves faster near its perihelion, I think that will break down)

And, nitpick, nowadays, the AU apparently is exactly 149,597,870,700 meters.

[xrisk]

The distance between the sun and the earth is not constant, whereas the AU is.