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At aphelion, Earth will be 94.51 million miles (152.1 million kilometers) away from the sun... Earth will be 1.67% farther from the sun than the mean Earth-sun separation, also known as an astronomical unit. (One astronomical unit is equivalent to 92.96 million miles (149.6 million km)). Earth will be closest to the sun — a moment dubbed perihelion — on January 4, 2023, when it will be 91.4 million miles (147.1 million km) away from the sun according to timeanddate(opens in new tab). Earth's orbit is not a perfect circle which is why we experience aphelion and perihelion. The degree...

Normal Axis tilt 23.5 degrees Current Axis Tilt & new Tropic lines

Having a great July 4th? The day gives us another cause to celebrate, as the Earth reaches aphelion today, or our farthest point to our host star. Aphelion is the opposite of the closest point of the year, known as perihelion. Note that the ‘helion’ part only applies to things in solar orbit, perigee/apogee for orbit ’round the Earth, apolune/perilune for orbit around the Moon, and so on. You’ll hear the words apijove and perijove bandied about this week a bit, as NASA’s Juno spacecraft enters orbit around Jupiter tonight. And there are crazier and even more obscure counterparts out...

[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.] Happy New Year! And don’t feel bad about taking today off. After all, you’ve traveled far. And I’m not talking about the trip home from the party last night. According to NASA, just by being on the planet Earth in the last year, you’ve zipped about 584 million miles around the sun to get back where you were. At an average speed of about 67,000 miles per hour. Again, not talking about the drive home last night. Of course, the trip was not a perfect circle. As Kepler showed, the Earth’s...