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Earth is at perihelion — closer to the sun than on any other day of the year
CBS News ^ | January 2, 2021 / 10:44 AM/ | By Sophie Lewis

Posted on 01/02/2021 11:19:32 AM PST by BenLurkin

Although sunlight is more intense on Saturday, winter in the Northern Hemisphere is unaffected, due to the 23.5-degree tilt of Earth's axis. Being closer to the sun does not change the Earth's tilt, so the North Pole is still tilted away from the sun.

Six months from now, on July 5, Earth will be at its farthest from the sun, known as its aphelion, meaning "far from the sun." At perihelion, Earth is about 91.5 million miles from the sun, and at aphelion, it is around 94.5 million miles away.

Between perihelion and aphelion, there is about a 6.7% difference in the intensity of the sunlight as it hits our planet. According to NASA, this is one explanation for more extreme seasons in the Southern Hemisphere compared to the Northern Hemisphere.

(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...


TOPICS: Astronomy
KEYWORDS: earth; perihelion; sun

1 posted on 01/02/2021 11:19:32 AM PST by BenLurkin
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To: BenLurkin

This is why the northern hemisphere is preferable to the southern, milder seasons.


2 posted on 01/02/2021 11:20:51 AM PST by SpaceBar
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To: SpaceBar

And the fact that there are more oceans in the southern hemisphere is more evidence of God’s creation. This is a fine tuned planetary condition for life.


3 posted on 01/02/2021 11:24:32 AM PST by HighSierra5
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To: BenLurkin

I was told January 3rd in 2007...


4 posted on 01/02/2021 11:27:22 AM PST by EEGator
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To: BenLurkin

Quick, somebody call Al Gore....


5 posted on 01/02/2021 11:29:08 AM PST by unread (A REPUBLIC..! If you can keep it....)
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To: EEGator

Maybe it’s due to leap year...


6 posted on 01/02/2021 11:31:49 AM PST by EEGator
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To: BenLurkin

I’ve been feeling like Hellions were all around.


7 posted on 01/02/2021 11:34:08 AM PST by DannyTN
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To: BenLurkin

On January 20th, the government will be closer to Uranus than ever in history...


8 posted on 01/02/2021 11:39:35 AM PST by fhayek
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To: BenLurkin

Still cold here in Louisiana. 8>)


9 posted on 01/02/2021 11:41:16 AM PST by Robert DeLong
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To: BenLurkin

The Solar Year, or the time between noon on the longest days (The Summer Solstice ) is 365.24219 days. The time it takes for Earth to orbit the Sun is 365.256363004 days. The difference is because of the precession of the equinoxes.

The image above shows the point on the Celestial Sphere where the stars appear to rotate based on the years between the year 2000 and year predicted. The cycle repeats approximately every 26000 years.

10 posted on 01/02/2021 12:12:22 PM PST by Nateman (Democracy dies with voted fraud darkness.)
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To: BenLurkin

Look up Milankovitch cycles. The reason why we are in the mmidsdle of a 20,000 year interglacial is that we are in a period of the Milankovitch cycle with suffficient rotational axis tilt, where the orbital perihelion points the southern oceans at the sun during their summers. Southern oceans absorb far more heat than northern continents.


11 posted on 01/02/2021 12:18:23 PM PST by nagant
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To: BenLurkin

Must be why we warmed up to -5 here in Fairbanks!


12 posted on 01/02/2021 12:50:12 PM PST by vpintheak (Live free, or die!)
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To: EEGator
It moves around based on the year being approximately 365.25. Also, the sun and planets rotate around a common center (the barycenter), so the exact location of the sun can move around based on where Jupiter, Saturn, the planet of preteen giggles, and Neptune are in their orbit (the other planets are too small to have any noticeable effect).

Also, as the Earth's rotation and orbit precesses, we keep the calendar aligned with the seasons rather than the perihelion and aphelion, so they shift forward about a day every 58 years.

YearPerihelionDistanceAphelionDistance
2021January 2, 2021 8:50 am91,399,454 miJuly 5, 2021 6:27 pm94,510,886 mi
2022January 4, 2022 1:52 am91,406,842 miJuly 4, 2022 3:10 am94,509,598 mi
2023January 4, 2023 11:17 am91,403,034 miJuly 6, 2023 4:06 pm94,506,364 mi
2024January 2, 2024 7:38 pm91,404,095 miJuly 5, 2024 1:06 am94,510,539 mi
2025January 4, 2025 8:28 am91,405,993 miJuly 3, 2025 3:54 pm94,502,939 mi
* All aphelion/perihelion times are in local Eastern time.

13 posted on 01/02/2021 12:50:28 PM PST by KarlInOhio (The greatest threat to world freedom is the Chinese Communist Party and Joe Biden is their puppet.)
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To: All

Then why isn’t it warmer?
:-)

Although it explains why it is so windy;
;-)

(Wind From the Sun / Sunjammer was one of my favorite Arthur C. Clarke stories)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunjammer


14 posted on 01/02/2021 12:51:21 PM PST by LegendHasIt
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To: KarlInOhio

Thank you for the information.


15 posted on 01/02/2021 1:35:04 PM PST by EEGator
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To: KarlInOhio

pre-teen giggles?? we still get those on this board!


16 posted on 01/02/2021 1:50:53 PM PST by ealgeone
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To: BenLurkin

FTA: closer to the sun than on any other day of the year

How do we know we won’t fall into the Sun and burn up?


17 posted on 01/02/2021 2:53:23 PM PST by minnesota_bound (I need more money. )
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To: nagant

Thanks for the tip on Milankovitch cycles! The ideas seem intuitive.


18 posted on 01/02/2021 3:38:19 PM PST by Theophilus (Breathe free or die hard!)
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To: SpaceBar

There’s not much habitable land in the Southern temperate/frigid zones.

Cape Town - 64/45 in July
Buenos Aires - 58/47
Sydney - 63/47
Perth - 65/46
Auckland - 58/46

McMurdo Station Antarctica appears to have colder winters than Thule Air Base Greenland though.


19 posted on 01/02/2021 6:37:28 PM PST by scrabblehack
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