If you google distance between Sun and Earth, Google gets it right.
Google thinks the sun is 15.81 light years from earth
41–50 of 68 posts
Re: Google thinks the sun is 15.81 light years from earth
#42Huh... with JavaScript off, I get the answer "Distance from Sun: 92.96 million " (presumably miles) on the right hand side. With JavaScript on, I get the wrong answer from the title. Edit: Actually, it gets the same answer on the right side with JS enabled; didn't notice that earlier. So just the instant answer is missing in the JS-disabled case. Also, here's a screenshot for posterity (with JS enabled): https://i.im…
With JS disabled I get "Distance from Sun: 149.6 millio...", presumably kilometers. Incidentally, thank you Google for filling half of my monitor with whitespace...
Re: Google thinks the sun is 15.81 light years from earth
#43My son likes to ask our Google Home the distance to different planets. The numbers, though generally technically correct (sun has worked in the past), are misleading as some are minimum, some average distance and some maximum.
For example "distance to mars" says 54.6 million km, which is the theoretical minimum. "distance to venus" says 261 million km which is maximum. I believe it was Jupiter that previously gave an average distance but now I'm seeing minimum.
Re: Google thinks the sun is 15.81 light years from earth
#44the AIs are coming to kill us any day now
Re: Google thinks the sun is 15.81 light years from earth
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's still cloudy here in Austria, I'll count the number of suns later when the clouds are gone.
Not so cloudy in Burgenland, I only see one. But I don't have a telescope with a sun filter to scientifically prove it.
Isn't the earth flat in burgenland?
Re: Google thinks the sun is 15.81 light years from earth
#46Distance Earth-Sun = 1 AU 1e6 AU = 15.81 light years. Somebody did not pick up the 'e6' part...
Yes definitely a decimal place error
https://www.calculateme.com/astronomy/astronomical-units/to-...
Re: Google thinks the sun is 15.81 light years from earth
#47My son likes to ask our Google Home the distance to different planets. The numbers, though generally technically correct (sun has worked in the past), are misleading as some are minimum, some average distance and some maximum. For example "distance to mars" says 54.6 million km, which is the theoretical minimum. "distance to venus" says 261 million km which is maximum. I believe it was Jupiter that previously gave an…
By the "[maximum] distance to different planets" do you really mean literally that, or do you mean the maximum distances to their orbits?
Re: Google thinks the sun is 15.81 light years from earth
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
WA thinks the distance is 0.9843 AU...
That is probably the current distance. 1 AU is the mean distance.
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.
Re: Google thinks the sun is 15.81 light years from earth
#49My son likes to ask our Google Home the distance to different planets. The numbers, though generally technically correct (sun has worked in the past), are misleading as some are minimum, some average distance and some maximum. For example "distance to mars" says 54.6 million km, which is the theoretical minimum. "distance to venus" says 261 million km which is maximum. I believe it was Jupiter that previously gave an…
By the "[maximum] distance to different planets" do you really mean literally that, or do you mean the maximum distances to their orbits?
Wouldn’t those be the same? The periods of each planet’s orbit aren’t factors/multiples of one another, so eventually any two will be at opposite points in their orbit.
Re: Google thinks the sun is 15.81 light years from earth
#50Google seems to think that Earth is Gliese 412 Gliese 412 is a pair of stars that share a common proper motion through space and are thought to form a binary star system. The pair have an angular separation of 31.4″ at a position angle of 126.1°.[12] They are located 15.8 light years distant from the Sun in the constellation Ursa Major. Both components are relatively dim red dwarf stars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…
I rather think it's a decimal error. The distance to the sun is 15.813 μly away from earth.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_brightest_stars#/Main_ta...