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Concept
Semi-major and semi-minor axes
Summary
In geometry, the major axis of an ellipse is its longest diameter: a line segment that runs through the center and both foci, with ends at the two most widely separated points of the perimeter. The semi-major axis (major semiaxis) is the longest semidiameter or one half of the major axis, and thus runs from the centre, through a focus, and to the perimeter. The semi-minor axis (minor semiaxis) of an ellipse or hyperbola is a line segment that is at right angles with the semi-major axis and has one end at the center of the conic section. For the special case of a circle, the lengths of the semi-axes are both equal to the radius of the circle.
The length of the semi-major axis a of an ellipse is related to the semi-minor axis's length b through the eccentricity e and the semi-latus rectum , as follows:
The semi-major axis of a hyperbola is, depending on the convention, plus or minus one half of the distance between the two branches. Thus it is the distance from the center to either vertex of the hyperbola.
A parabola can be obtained as the limit of a sequence of ellipses where one focus is kept fixed as the other is allowed to move arbitrarily far away in one direction, keeping fixed. Thus a and b tend to infinity, a faster than b.
The major and minor axes are the axes of symmetry for the curve: in an ellipse, the minor axis is the shorter one; in a hyperbola, it is the one that does not intersect the hyperbola.
The equation of an ellipse is
where (h, k) is the center of the ellipse in Cartesian coordinates, in which an arbitrary point is given by (x, y).
The semi-major axis is the mean value of the maximum and minimum distances and of the ellipse from a focus — that is, of the distances from a focus to the endpoints of the major axis
In astronomy these extreme points are called apsides.
The semi-minor axis of an ellipse is the geometric mean of these distances:
The eccentricity of an ellipse is defined as
so
Now consider the equation in polar coordinates, with one focus at the origin and the other on the direction:
The mean value of and , for and is
In an ellipse, the semi-major axis is the geometric mean of the distance from the center to either focus and the distance from the center to either directrix.
Official source
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