The Northern Hemisphere is in the grip of winter, with countries like the UK facing cold snowfall and icy conditions. So some would be surprised to know that our planet today is actually in the position closest to the sun for the whole year – a phenomenon known as a perihelion.
The Perihelion is the exact period when the Earth’s orbit approaches the point closest to the star in our solar system.
The word ‘perihelion’ comes from the Greek words ‘peri’ – meaning ‘near’ – and ‘helios’ – meaning ‘sun’.
At 1.51 pm on Saturday, January 2, our world is located exactly 91,399,453 miles (147,093,162 million km) from the Sun.
This is about three percent closer to the average, resulting in the Earth receiving significantly more radiation as it receives heat from the sun.
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As a result, even the sun will be almost indistinctly large in our day sky.
The US-based space agency NASA said in a statement: “The average distance from the Earth to the Sun is called the astronomical unit. [AU], But our orbit is not a perfect circle, so it means that sometimes we are a little closer to the sun, and sometimes farther away.
“In fact, our distance from the sun changes about three million miles a year.
“It is about 13 times the distance of the moon from the earth.
The Earth is known to spin on an axis at a title of 23.44 degrees – which is responsible for allocating how much sunlight it receives in each hemisphere of the Earth at different times of the year.
These are both in terms of the duration of the day and how low or high the sun is in the sky.
This li tu is the key factor responsible for asons tuo and ionization.
Somewhat paradoxically, although the perihelion means that the earth receives more radiation from the sun, in fact the earth is at its peak during this period.
This is because most of the Southern Hemisphere has oceans that absorb the excess heat, negating the effects of the perihelion.
