The earth is farthest from the sun this Thursday (6)

This Thursday (6), the earth will reach aphelion, which is the point of its orbit farthest from the sun. As is known, our planet, like all other planets in the solar system, revolves around the “astronomical king” in a movement called translation.

It turns out that this “little lap” that the planets take around the sun is not a perfect circle, but a slightly elliptical path known as an ellipse. In this way, the distance between Earth, for example, and our host star varies by about 3% over the course of a year.

According to the astronomical guide InTheSky.orgthe moment the Earth will reach aphelion will be at 17:06 (Brasilia time), when it is 1.0167 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun – a distance equivalent to 152,093,163 km.

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Does the distance between Earth and the sun bring cooler days?

Also according to the platform, the earth reaches aphelion every year on about the same day. Although this always happens in the Southern Hemisphere in winter, it is not the distance between the planet and the Sun that determines the seasons (after all, even though it is equally far from the star, it is now summer in the Northern Hemisphere) .

Annual climate changes are due entirely to the tilt of the Earth’s rotation axis, and not to any change in its distance from the sun.

For observers stationed in the northern hemisphere, where it is summer, and in the southern hemisphere, where it is winter, on days near aphelion the sun appears smaller in the sky than at any other time of the year, and the earth receives less radiation from it.

In about six months, the opposite will happen: Earth will be closer to the Sun, which will appear slightly larger in the sky. Also at that time, we will receive more radiation from the star. The exact moment our planet reaches perihelion (the point of its orbit closest to the sun) will be on January 2, 2024, at 9:38 p.m.

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