Earth at perihelion
Publiée le 2007-12-04
Earth at perihelion
The orbit of the barycenter Earth-Moon around the Sun is in first estimate an ellipse. The distance Earth-sun is not thus constant and present a minimum (the perihelion) and a maximum (the aphelion). The Earth is going to pass a its perihelion on January 2nd, 2008 at 23h 51min UTC. The distance Earth-sun will be then of 0.98328 AU ( astronomical units) that is 147 096 593km. This minimum value is not the same from one year to the next because the orbit of the Earth is not a perfect ellipse but an ellipse perturbed by the gravitational effects. We shall notice that the distance Earth-sun has not enough effect on the phenomenon of the seasons which is essentially due to the slope of the Earth rotation axis on its orbit.
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