As I type this (noon, MST, January 3) Earth is at a distance of 92,955,807 miles from the Sun. This is the perihelion, the point in our planet’s slightly elliptical orbit where we are closest to the Sun.
On the 4th of July this year we’ll be at aphelion, the point of our greatest distance from the Sun (94,507,988 miles).
That’s right, at this very moment Earth is more than 1.5 million miles closer to the Sun than it is in July.
Now you know why it’s so hot outside.
Happy New Year!
It was actually surprisingly warm here in the SF Bay Area, but blazing hot on my perihelion blog:
http://SUNWORSHIP.info/2011/perihelion/
(Ok… the response has actually been pretty tepid so far.)
It’s been over a year since the “Utah Fire Ball” lit up the midnight sky. What have we learned (for sure) about it’s path. Not so much interested in where it landed, but is there a decision as to what direction it was coming from and going towards. North East to South West, South East to North West? At the very least it seems as though we should be able to know the direction it was traveling.