Sun’s Perihelion. Credit Peter Ward (Barden Ridge Observatory)
Earth‘s orbit around the Sun isn’t a perfect circle—it’s an ellipse. The closest point to the Sun in this orbit is called perihelion, which happens this year on January 4 at 13:28 UTC.
At that moment, Earth is about 147 million kilometers away from the Sun. For comparison, Earth reaches its farthest point, aphelion, around July 3, about 152 million kilometers from the Sun.
Earth’s distance from the Sun doesn’t determine the seasons. It’s a coincidence that perihelion occurs just 14 days after the December solstice, marking the start of southern summer (and northern winter).
Similarly, Earth’s perihelion this year happens only 11 days after the historic perihelion of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe. Launched in 2018, the probe set a record on December 24, 2024, flying just 6.2 million kilometers from the Sun’s surface.
source APOD
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