Happy Fourth of July and Aphelion Day!
This Saturday, July 4, the Earth will be at the furthest point from its orbit around the sun, also known as aphelion.
Aphelion will occur at 7:34 am EDT (11:34 GMT), at which time Earth will be approximately 94,507,635 miles (152,095,295 kilometers) from the sun. That’s more than 1.5 million miles (2.5 million km) further than the average distance from the planet of approximately 93 million miles (150 million km), and 3 million miles (5 million km) further than which is in the perihelion, or shortest distance from the sun, that happened on January 5.
Related: Top 10 views of Earth from space
Earth travels in an elliptical or oval orbit around the sun. As a result, the distance from Earth to the sun varies approximately 3% throughout the year.
When Earth reaches aphelion, the sun appears a little smaller in the sky than at any other time of the year, although the difference is not noticeable to the naked eye, according to In-The-Sky.org. (And you should never look at the sun without proper eye protection.)
Our planet reaches aphelion only once a year, and the event generally occurs approximately 14 days after the June solstice, which marks the first day of summer for the northern hemisphere and the first day of winter for the southern hemisphere. Similarly, perihelion occurs two weeks after the December solstice.
However, the change in the distance from the sun is not related to the seasons of the Earth. Rather, the seasons are the result of the Earth’s tilt on its axis. Right now, it is summer in the northern hemisphere because the northern part of the Earth is tilted towards the sun, and it is winter in the southern hemisphere because the southern part of the Earth is away from the sun.
Since Earth is getting closer to its farthest point from the sun, it also travels more slowly in its orbit. In turn, summer is the longest season in the northern hemisphere, while winter is the longest season in the southern half of the planet.
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