Earth to move closest to Sun today

Hyderabad: Earth will reach the closest point to sun on January 2 (Saturday), Planetary Society of India (PSI) said on Friday. Its director N Raghunandan Kumar said that Earth revolves around Sun in an elliptical orbit. So, at one point of time during its journey around the sun, it will be at the closest point it can get (perihelion) and at one point of time during the year it would be at the farthest point (aphelion).

"At 7.27 pm Earth will reach the closest point to Sun in its annual elliptical orbit around Sun at 0.9832571 AU i.e. at 14,70,93,168 km from Sun. Whereas on July 6, 2021 at 3:46 a.m. IST Earth will be at Aphelion at 1.0167292 AU (15,21,00,523 km) from Sun i.e. which is the farthest point from Sun.

AU stands for astronomical unit, a unit of length effectively equal to the average, or mean, distance between Earth and the Sun, defined as 149,597,870.7 km (92,955,807.3 miles).

Earth will be 50,07,355 km closer to Sun compared to July 6, 2021. Though people will not able to notice or observe this celestial event, it is of greatest importance with educational potential for students and the public to understand temperatures or seasons on Earth are not dependent on the distance of Earth to the Sun but axial tilt during its journey around the Sun," he added.