What is the Sun's approximate distance from Earth?

• A. About 93 million miles
• B. About 93 thousand miles
• C. About 3 billion miles
• D. About 150 million kilometers

Answer: (A)

The distance to the Sun is about one astronomical unit, a standard measure for how far planets are from the Sun. That unit is roughly 149.6 million kilometers, which is about 93 million miles. Earth’s orbit isn’t a perfect circle, so the distance changes a little—from about 147 million kilometers (around 91 million miles) at closest approach to about 152 million kilometers (around 94–95 million miles) at farthest. That’s why the commonly cited answer is around 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers. The other numbers are not in the right range for the solar system scale.