Earth is farthest from the sun today, Happy Aphelion Day 2021
Jul 5, 2021, 1:55 PM
FILE -- A dark, snaking line across the lower half of the sun in this Feb. 10, 2015, image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a filament of solar material hovering above the sun's surface. SDO shows colder material as dark and hotter material as light, so the line is, in fact, an enormous swatch of colder material hovering in the sun's atmosphere, the corona. Stretched out, that line – or solar filament as scientists call it – would be more than 533,000 miles long. Image Credit: NASA/SDO
(SDO)
SALT LAKE CITY — The forecast on the Wasatch Front is going to be in the 100s this week, and that’s all happening even though the Earth being farthest from the sun it will be all year.
The scientific term for this special event is called an “aphelion.” Space.com said we’ll reach that point the farthest away from the sun on Monday, July 5 at 2:27 p.m. The Aphelion happens once a year, and usually falls somewhere in the first few days of July.
If we’re so far away, why is it so hot?
The warm weather has no relationship to the distance from the sun, Space.com says the heat from the seasons is due to the tilt of the Earth’s axis not by how close we are to the sun. How the earth is tilted determines whether the sun’s rays strike the planet at a low angle or more directly. That makes it hotter, or colder.
“This time of year we in the northern hemisphere are tilted toward the Sun,” NASA’s Solar System Ambassador to Utah Patrick Wiggins said.
“So it’s higher in the sky and thus stays in the sky much longer than in January when we are tilted away from the Sun causing it to be lower and in the sky for far fewer hours.”
Aphelion or Perihelion?
On Monday, the distance between the Earth and Sun will be 94,510,886 miles and we’ll be the farthest away from our nearest star which is called the aphelion.
Its opposite, the perihelion, is when the Earth is closest to the sun, which happens around New Years where the earth gets about 3,111,432 miles closer to the sun.
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