During which season in the northern hemisphere is the Earth closest to the Sun?

According to Kepler's First Law of Planetary Motion, all planets, comets and asteroids in our solar system have approximately elliptical orbits. (Any single revolution of a body around the Sun is only approximately elliptical, because the phenomenon known as precession of the perihelion prevents the orbit from being a simple closed curve such as an ellipse.) Thus, they all have a closest and a farthest point from the Sun: a perihelion and an aphelion, known collectively as apsides. Orbital eccentricity measures the flatness (departure from a perfect circle) of the orbit.

Earth comes closest to the Sun every year around January 3. It is farthest from the Sun every year around July 4. (For a table of these dates for various years, see Apsis.)

When Earth is closest to the Sun, it is winter in the northern hemisphere and summer in the southern hemisphere.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org

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25 Comments

jhndwrdlws

The northern hemisphere is tilted towards the sun in the summer and tilted away from the sun in the winter. That's why it's hotter in the summer.

Ray Anderson

great question and information - got that one wrong :-(

JRW

The answer has nothing to do with the seasons of the year which are a result of the tilt of the Earth's axis. Rather it is because of the Earth's elliptical orbit which is an interesting piece of mathematics (geometry in particular). The Sun is located at 1 of the 2 foci of the Earth's orbit.

chris reeves

Howard Groopman, Which is true for the southern hemisphere.

Howard Groopman

Fortunately I knew this, because otherwise one might think it's closest in summer and farthest in winter.

Peter Abrams

acks, The majority is also wrong in this case. We are tilted away from the sun in the winter so we receive more indirect light (in the northern hemisphere at least) so we receive less heat ( in general) as well.