Description: The ecliptic is the great circle on the celestial sphere formed by projecting the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun onto the celestial sphere. Effectively, the ecliptic is the apparent path of the Sun amongst the stars during the year. All constellations of the Zodiac lie along the ecliptic, and eight major planets lie relatively close to the ecliptic as observed from the Earth.

Related Terms:

• Celestial Sphere
• Seasons
• Zodiac

Term and definition status: This term and its definition have been approved by a research astronomer and a teacher

The OAE Multilingual Glossary is a project of the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE) in collaboration with the IAU Office of Astronomy Outreach (OAO). The terms and definitions were chosen, written and reviewed by a collective effort from the OAE, the OAE Centers and Nodes, the OAE National Astronomy Education Coordinators (NAECs) and other volunteers. You can find a full list of credits here. All glossary terms and their definitions are released under a Creative Commons CC BY-4.0 license and should be credited to "IAU OAE".