ECLIPTIC

Ecliptic

The ecliptic is the apparent path of the Sun on the celestial sphere, and is the basis for the ecliptic coordinate system. It also refers to the plane of this path, which is coplanar with both the orbit of the Earth around the Sun and the apparent orbit of the Sun around the Earth.

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ecliptic

Noun

  1. The apparent path of the Sun in the sky. More accurately, it is the intersection of the celestial sphere with the plane of the ecliptic, which is the geometric plane containing the mean orbit of the Earth around the Sun. So named because an eclipse can occur only when the Moon lies on this plane.
  2. A great circle drawn on a terrestrial globe, used for illustrating and solving astronomical problems.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: ecliptic
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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