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Astronomy Picture of the Day - Welcome to Perihelion
NASA ^ | 4 Jan, 2024 | Image Credit & Copyright: Peter Ward (Barden Ridge Observatory)

Posted on 01/04/2025 11:52:34 AM PST by MtnClimber

Explanation: Earth's orbit around the Sun is not a circle, it's an ellipse. The point along its elliptical orbit where our fair planet is closest to the Sun is called perihelion. This year perihelion is today, January 4, at 13:28 UTC, with the Earth about 147 million kilometers from the Sun. For comparison, at aphelion on last July 3 Earth was at its farthest distance from the Sun, some 152 million kilometers away. But distance from the Sun doesn't determine Earth's seasons. It's only by coincidence that the beginning of southern summer (northern winter) on the December solstice - when this H-alpha picture of the active Sun was taken - is within 14 days of Earth's perihelion date. And it's only by coincidence that Earth's perihelion date is within 11 days of the historic perihelion of NASA's Parker Solar Probe. Launched in 2018, the Parker Solar Probe flew within 6.2 million kilometers of the Sun's surface on 2024 December 24, breaking its own record for closest perihelion for a spacecraft from planet Earth.


TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: apod; nasa
To be added or removed from the Astronomy Picture of the Day ping list please send me a request via "Private Reply" (Mail).

For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

1 posted on 01/04/2025 11:52:34 AM PST by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

2 posted on 01/04/2025 11:52:54 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: 21stCenturion; 21twelve; 4everontheRight; A Navy Vet; A_perfect_lady; abb; AFB-XYZ; AFPhys; ...
Pinging the APOD list

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

3 posted on 01/04/2025 11:53:37 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber
When I was in the fourth or fifth grade, they showed us a movie at school called Our Mr. Sun. Great stuff.
4 posted on 01/04/2025 11:59:37 AM PST by ComputerGuy (Heavily-medicated for your protection)
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To: MtnClimber

thanks for this. That’s information I would have missed.


5 posted on 01/04/2025 12:00:01 PM PST by Strict9
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To: MtnClimber

It doesn’t feel like a Perihelion. It’s down right frigid.


6 posted on 01/04/2025 12:08:50 PM PST by Boiler Plate ("Why be difficult, when with just a little more work, you can be impossible" Mom)
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To: MtnClimber

Wow.


7 posted on 01/04/2025 12:17:24 PM PST by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: MtnClimber

“...perihelion...with the Earth 147 million kilometers from the Sun.”
“...aphelion...with the Earth 152 million kilometers from the Sun.”
-
It has always puzzled me as to why being 5 million kilometers
closer to the sun (3.1 million miles) seems to make no difference.


8 posted on 01/04/2025 12:22:28 PM PST by Repeal The 17th (Get out of the matrix and get a real life.)
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To: Boiler Plate

You’re at the wrong end of the ‘tilted’ Earth.

On July 3, you’ll say it doesn’t feel like aphelion, too. Neither makes much difference in how we feel :-)


9 posted on 01/04/2025 12:42:18 PM PST by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: MtnClimber

Mars’ closest approach to Earth and opposition will be on and near the 15th of this month.


10 posted on 01/04/2025 1:49:19 PM PST by Tom Tetroxide (Psalm 146:3 "Do not trust in princes, in the son of man, who has no salvation.")
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To: MtnClimber

If we’re the closest we get to the Sun all year, why is it so friggin’ COLD outside? ;)


11 posted on 01/04/2025 2:09:27 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin (I don't have, 'Hobbies.' I'm developing a robust Post-Apocalyptic skill set.)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
If we’re the closest we get to the Sun all year, why is it so friggin’ COLD outside? ;)

Clearly it is the Glow Bull Warming.

12 posted on 01/04/2025 2:48:07 PM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: Repeal The 17th
It has always puzzled me as to why being 5 million kilometers closer to the sun (3.1 million miles) seems to make no difference.

I was just thinking of that!

13 posted on 01/04/2025 3:15:40 PM PST by Deaf and Discerning
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To: MtnClimber

It kind of looks like a tightly wound ball of yarn.


14 posted on 01/04/2025 3:27:12 PM PST by Jonty30 (Genghis Khan did not have the most descendants. His father had more. )
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To: MtnClimber

Nope. It’s Wisconsin. In January. ;)


15 posted on 01/04/2025 5:35:21 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin (I don't have, 'Hobbies.' I'm developing a robust Post-Apocalyptic skill set.)
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To: Jonty30
You're thinking of the Moon. ;)


16 posted on 01/05/2025 5:57:33 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin (I don't have, 'Hobbies.' I'm developing a robust Post-Apocalyptic skill set.)
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