Someone asked about the orbit of the car launched by the rocket Falcon Heavy in February 2018, and it said that
After orbiting the Earth for 6 hours, a third-stage burn-to-depletion was completed at approximately 02:30 UTC Feb 7, placing the dummy payload in a heliocentric orbit having a perihelion of 0.99 au and aphelion ~1.7 au.and I thought, wait a pony picking minute, 0.99 au? Isn't earth "exactly" 1 au away from sun? Surely, the car got launched by accelerating from LEO, so when it enters the heliocentric orbit, its perihelion must be almost exactly the same as earth-sun distance.
Well, it's not precisely 1 au, and earth's orbit around the sun has eccentricity... Fermi estimate time!!!
