Perihelion Day 2022: Earth Makes Closest Yearly Approach to the Sun

The Earth reached its closest approach to the sun on Tuesday, an annual astronomical occurrence that coincides with the start of the new year.

Instead of a circular orbit, the planet takes an elliptical path around the sun. It implies that over the 365 days it takes Earth to complete one orbit around its parent star, the planet swings between being closest to the sun early in the year and being furthest months later.

Spacecraft Collecting Interstellar Dirt — An artist's rendering shows NASA's Stardust spacecraft on a mission to collect and return the first samples of dust from a comet. For now, the craft is collecting dust particles, smaller than one-hundredth the width of a human hair, that permeate the universe as the ship travels in the same direction as the dust stream until December 9, 2002. The encounter with the comet Wild 2 is scheduled for January 2, 2004 and is expected to collect particles up to 4.5 billion years old from the gas and dust that escape. A return to earth is slated for January 15, 2006. The spacecraft was launched on February 7, 1999. NASA/Getty Images

Perihelion Day 2022 Explained

EarthSky said that the Earth's closest approach to the sun, known as perihelion, occurred at 1:52 a.m. EST on Tuesday. The planet is currently nearly 3 million miles closer to the sun than when Earth reaches the furthest point in its orbit around the star, despite being mostly invisible.

On Jul. 4, the Earth will be the furthest from the sun this year. When the distance between the two heavenly bodies reaches more than 94.5 million miles, that point is known as aphelion.

Earth is approximately 91.4 million miles from the sun at perihelion. Space.com said that the distance between the planet and the sun is around 149.6 million kilometers (almost 93 million miles) on average.

The date of perihelion varies from year to year, ABC27 said. It used to happen on or around the winter solstice (Dec. 21 last year), but now it takes place around two weeks later. It occured anywhere between Jan. 2 and Jan. 5 in the previous decade.

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Difference Between Perihelion, Aphelion

Latestly said perihelion is derived from the ancient Greek words "peri," which means "near," and "helios," which means "sun." Aphelion, on the other hand, is derived from the Greek words "apo" and "helios," which mean "aside from." Each word is sometimes referred to as an apsis, which refers to the point when a heavenly body and its host are the closest or furthest apart.

The speed of a planet's orbit reduces as it moves away from the sun, such as Earth. Aphelion is when Earth approaches its furthest point from the sun and the slowest. The planet is then pulled back by the gravity of the sun. Meanwhile, perihelion is when the planet accelerates and begins to descend towards the sun. When it approaches its closest approach to the sun. The planet is racing along at maximum speed - fast enough to overcome the gravitational attraction of the sun and start going out to space again

The seasons are not caused by Earth's elliptical orbit around the sun, which occurs between winter in the Northern Hemisphere and summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Winter, spring, summer, and fall are all caused by the tilt of the globe as it turns on its axis.

Hence, when the Northern Hemisphere tilts away from the sun, winter descends, and summer falls when the Northern Hemisphere is slanted toward the sun.

Almanac said perihelion is normally in early January, and aphelion is in early July. Still, because Earth's orbit is slightly eccentric, these dates might vary from year to year.