Earth at Perihelion 2025 is on Saturday, January 4, 2025: what do you call the point when the earth's orbit is close to sun?
Saturday, January 4, 2025 is Earth at Perihelion 2025. Earth at Perihelion - NASA Science Earth at Perihelion - NASA
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Earth reaches perihelion (closest point to the Sun) on January 3, 2007. The Earth-Sun distance will be 147,093,602 km. Aphelion, the greatest distance from the Sun, occurs on July 7, 2007, when the Earth-Sun distance will be 152,097,053 km.
The difference between the two is 5,003,451 km, (3.3 percent), and not enough to cause the seasons. Even though, at this time of year, we're as close to the Sun as we can get, for the Northern Hemisphere, it will always be winter.
perihelion and aphelion energy differences?
the earth's perihelion and aphelion distances differ by 3 %; since solar radiation varies as 1/r^2, we can write
I(aphelion)/I(perihelion) = [r(ap)/r(peri)]^2=1.03^2=1.06
since r(ap)=1.03 r(peri)
this is a 6% difference in incident radiation throughout the year
for Mars, the distances vary by closer to 9%, so the ratio of energies is 1.09^2=1.19 or a 19% difference
How fast does the Earth go at perihelion and aphelion?
I can do some research on this and come up with some figures for you, I don't have all the information, or the equation (you might have better luck in a physics forum, just a suggestion) but if the earth is 149,600,000km average distance from the sun, with an eccentricity of 0.0167... that puts it's perihelion distance a little over 147,000,000 km, and aphelion at 152,000,000 km.
If you know the mass of the earth and the mass of the sun, and know the equation, you can figure out this answer.
But, like I said, I'll try to do some more searching for you.
I did not do the math myself, but I found a site that gives an answer, and "Quasar's" answer for the average does fall near the middle of these numbers. So it seems accurate. (see source):
perihelion 30300 m/s
aphelion it's 29300 m/s
