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Length/Distance | Convert from astronomical unit to centimeter |
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Common Length Conversions Metric Length Conversions Unit Definition (astronomical unit) An Astronomical Unit is approximately the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun. It is a derived constant and used to indicate distances within the solar system. Its formal definition is the radius of an unperturbed circular orbit a massless body would revolve about the sun in 2*(pi)/k days (i.e., 365.2568983.... days), where k is defined as the Gaussian constant exactly equal to 0.01720209895. Since an AU is based on radius of a circular orbit, one AU is actually slightly less than the average distance between the Earth and the Sun (approximately 150 million km or 93 million miles). Unit Definition (centimeter) The centimeter (or centimetre) was the basic unit of distance in the former CGS (centimeter, gram, second) version of the metric system, equal to 0.01 meter. The engineering standard uses every third power of ten, such as 10e3, 10e9, 10e12, etc., and for small numbers 10e-3, 10e-6, etc. The only exception is the centimeter. "Cent" means a hundredth, or 10e-2, but the centimeter is still commonly used because it is such a convenient unit for measuring length.
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