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The northern hemisphere remains under the control of winter, with countries like the United Kingdom facing snow and ice conditions. Therefore, some may be surprised to learn that our planet is today at its closest point to the Sun throughout the year, a phenomenon known as perihelion.
Perihelion is the precise period in which the Earth’s orbit approaches its closest point to the star in our solar system.
The word ‘perihelion’ is derived from the Greek words ‘peri’, which means ‘near’, and ‘helios’, which means ‘Sun’.
At 1.51 pm GMT on Saturday, January 2, our world is located exactly 91,399,453 miles (147,093,162 million kilometers) from the Sun.
This is about three percent closer than average, causing the Earth to receive significantly more radiation as heat from the Sun.
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As a result, the Sun will also be almost imperceptibly larger in our daytime sky.
The US space agency NASA said in a statement: “The average distance from the Earth to the Sun is called the Astronomical Unit. [AU]But since our orbit is not a perfect circle, it means that sometimes we are a little closer to the Sun and sometimes further away.
“In fact, our distance from the Sun varies around three million miles throughout the year.
“That is almost 13 times the distance from Earth to the Moon.
The Earth is known to rotate on an axis titled 23.44 degrees, a tilt responsible for allocating the amount of sunlight that each hemisphere of Earth receives at different times of the year.
This is both in terms of the length of days and how low or high the Sun hangs in the sky.
This obliquity is the key factor responsible for the seasons and solstices.
Somewhat counterintuitive, although perihelion means that the Earth receives more radiation from the Sun, the Earth is actually at its coldest during this period.
This is because most of the southern hemisphere is oceans, which absorb the extra heat, canceling out the impact of perihelion.
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