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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...

Astronomers find runaway galaxies 21 hours ago Enlarge This schematic illustrates the creation of a runaway galaxy. In the first panel, an "intruder" spiral galaxy approaches a galaxy cluster center, where a compact elliptical galaxy (cE) already revolves around a massive central elliptical galaxy. In the second panel, a close encounter occurs and the compact elliptical receives a gravitational kick from the intruder. In the third panel, the compact elliptical escapes the galaxy cluster while the intruder is devoured by the giant elliptical galaxy in the cluster center. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-04-astronomers-runaway-galaxies.html#jCp We know of about two dozen runaway stars,...

MIAMI -- Joint Task Force-Guantanamo announced today that a detainee died of apparent natural causes late Tuesday evening. The detainee is identified as Awal Gul, a 48-year-old Afghan. He arrived at Guantanamo in October 2002. Gul was housed in Camp 6, which provides communal living areas for up to 20 detainees. He collapsed in the shower after exercising on an elliptical machine. Other detainees in his cell block then assisted Gul to the guard station for medical attention. The guards immediately alerted medical personnel, who upon arriving at the cell block found him unresponsive. He was immediately transported to the...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 January 16 NGC 1700: Elliptical Galaxy and Rotating Disk Credit: Thomas S. Statler, Brian R. McNamara (Ohio Univ.), CXC, NASA Explanation: In spiral galaxies, majestic winding arms of young stars and interstellar gas and dust rotate in a disk around a bulging galactic nucleus. Elliptical galaxies seem to be simpler, randomly swarming with old stars and lacking gas and dust. So astronomers were excited to find that...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 July 4 Young Star Clusters in an Old Galaxy Credit T. H. Puzia (Sternwarte Munich), S E. Zepf (Yale / Michigan State) et al., ESO, ESA, NASA Explanation: Elliptical galaxy NGC 4365 is old, probably about 12 billion years old. Like most elliptical galaxies, this galaxy was thought to be full of old stars too, its burst of star forming activity having long since ended. But combining...