Closest to the Sun

We will be closest to our Sun for 2021 today, January 2, at 13:51 UTC. That was just now for Paradelle at 8:51 a.m. Eastern Time.

No, it did not feel any warmer. That’s not how the seasons and temperatures on Earth work. Astronomers call this perihelion –  the closest point in Earth’s elliptical orbit around that nearby star. (Greek roots peri + helios for near + sun.)

How close is closest?  Today we are 91,399,453 miles (147,093,162 km) away from the Sun. On my wife’s birthday, July 5, we will be at aphelion (most distant point)  which is 94,510,889 miles (152,100,533 km) away. We are about 3 million miles (5 million km) closer now than in July.

And yet it is a wintry cold here in the Northern Hemisphere because distance does not set the seasons (though it does affect seasonal lengths).

Now, we are moving fastest in our orbit around that star at almost 19 miles per second (30.3 km/sec). I thought I felt a little dizzy the past few days.

Hang on tight.

Missed Meteors and Getting Closest to the Sun

I missed the first major celestial event of 2020 – The Quadrantids meteor shower which peaked Friday night and early Saturday morning.

Murphy’s Law of Astronomy around here made it rainy and cloudy again. That’s a shame because the Quadrantids are short-lived and known for bright fireball meteors with long, glowing tails.

Poor old constellation Quadrans Muralis (mural quadrant hence the meteors’ name) is one of the former constellations that was demoted, but the meteors continue to shoot out of that quadrant.

The second event is unobservable with your eyes. Earth will reach its closest point to the sun for the whole of 2020 on January 4 or 5 (depends on your time zone). It happened today, January 5, at 07:48 UTC (2:48 a.m. Eastern Time) while I was sleeping.

This is what astronomers call perihelion – Greek peri meaning near and helios meaning sun. Shouldn’t it feel warmer if the Sun is “only” 91,398,199 miles (147,091,144 km) away?  Nope. That elliptical orbit has nothing to do with seasons.

In fact, in early July 4, 2020, when the Earth reaches aphelion (most distant point), it will be much hotter here in Paradelle though the Sun will be 94,507,635 miles (152,095,295 km) away from us.

Being 3 million miles closer to the sun today doesn’t seem to make a big difference in our lives – though it seems like it should. It does affect seasonal lengths because right now Earth is moving fastest in its orbit around the Sun. That makes my Northern Hemisphere winter and someone else’s Southern Hemisphere summer the shortest seasons.

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Does the Sun Feel Closer Today?

Does the Sun feel any closer to you today? I don’t mean does it feel warmer – though you might assume that to be true if it was any closer. Tonight, January 2, 2019, Earth reaches its closest point to the Sun for this entire year.

The moment of this special point in our orbit is called perihelion, a word we get from the Greek roots peri (near) and helios (sun).  The actual moment of perihelion will be 11:20 p.m. CST tonight.

Don’t expect to feel anything. Like most celestial occurrences, we don’t feel the effects immediately (like the change of seasons) or at all (like perihelion).

How close is close for the Sun? Earth will be 91,403,554 miles (147,099,761 km) from the Sun. Still, pretty far away. But in six months when we are farthest away (aphelion) and is most distant, the distance will be about 3 million miles (5 million km) further away.

Are you surprised that when we are farthest away from the sun in early July, it will be summer for us in the Northern Hemisphere.

Today the Earth Is the Closest It Will Be to the Sun All Year But…

Yes, the Earth is closest to sun on January 2/3 for this entire year, but don’t expect to feel it.

It certainly will not feel any warmer where I am (actually it’s colder than yesterday and tomorrow is even colder). This perihelion will happen at night (10:35 p.m. EST) for me and it will be quite cold then. (It happens on the morning of January 3 5:35 UTC in Europe and Africa.) Perihelion, from the Greek roots peri (near) and helios (sun), will bring us within 91,401,983 miles (147,097,233 km) of the Sun. Though we won’t feel any hotter, Earth is about 3 million miles (5 million km) closer to the sun in early January than it is in early July. This happens every year in early January. And we will be farthest away (aphelion) from the sun in early July. Seems counterintuitive to us in the Northern Hemisphere.

The difference in distance between perihelion and aphelion isn’t that much because Earth’s orbit is very nearly circular. That is why the tilt of our world’s axis is what creates winter and summer on Earth. My Northern Hemisphere is tilted away from the sun now, so it is winter.  The day of maximum tilt toward or away from the sun is the December or June solstice, but even that won’t make for the hottest or coldest days of the year. This tilting may make seasons, but atmospheric conditions make our weather change. I blame those Arctic blasts for my car’s dead battery this morning.

A Perseids Weekend

This weekend (tonight into early Saturday and Saturday into Sunday, August 11-12 and August 12-13) will be the peak nights of the 2017 Perseid meteor shower.

The Perseids get their name because they appear to come from the constellation Perseus. Perseus is a mythological Greek hero. He beheaded the Gorgon Medusa and saved Andromeda from a sea monster Cetus. Perseus was the son of the mortal Danaë and the god Zeus. In the night sky, constellations named after other ancient Greek legends surround Perseus, including Andromeda to the west and Cassiopeia to the north.

In 1866, after the perihelion passage of the Swift-Tuttle comet in 1862, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli discovered the link between meteor showers and comets. A meteor shower is the result of an interaction between a planet, such as Earth, and streams of debris from a comet.

In John Denver’s song “Rocky Mountain High”, he alludes to watching the Perseid meteor shower in the mountains near Aspen, Colorado – “I’ve seen it raining fire in the sky.”

A much stranger reference is the Catholic religion’s reference to the Perseids as the “tears of Saint Lawrence.” The belief was that his tears returned to Earth once a year on August 10 which is the canonical date of that saint’s martyrdom in 258 AD. Saint Lawrence was said to have been burned alive on a gridiron. From that came the origin of the Mediterranean folk legend that the shooting stars are the sparks of that fire. Furthermore, it was believed that during the night of August 9–10, the cooled embers of that fire appear in the ground under plants, and are known as the “coal of Saint Lawrence.” I checked around my garden Wednesday night. No coals.

This weekend you can watch from late evening until dawn. The meteor showers have been “falling” for several weeks, but this weekend should be the peak. The greatest number of meteors typically fall in the hours before dawn. In a remote location and on a “moonless” night, you might see 50+ meteors per hour. For 2017, there will be a bright waning gibbous moon after midnight. And I will be in Northern New jersey, not far from New York City, which will make viewing more difficult. But I still should be able to see those bright enough to overcome the city and moonlit glare.  This year they may be a “Perseid outburst” with 200 meteors per hour at the peak.

Closest to the Sun

The year just started but just a moment ago (22:49 Universal Time, 5:49 p.m. EST) Earth reached its closest point to the Sun for this year. We are at Earth’s perihelion (Greek peri “near” + helios “sun”).

Nothing extraordinary about this. Earth is closest to the sun every year in early January. This is isn’t why we moved into winter in the Northern Hemisphere. That is from the tilt of the planet, not the distance. In fact, we will be farthest away from the sun in early July, during our summer.

How much closer? About 3 million miles (5 million kilometers) closer. Big numbers but relatively not a big change in distance. Still, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to acknowledge the big star’s presence today. It’s already dark here in Paradelle, but the Sun is out there keeping us alive even on these wintry and cloudy days. Thanks, Helios!