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What Are Aphelion and Perihelion? Facts and Dates for 2024

Learn when the Earth is closest and farthest from the Sun.

The terms Aphelion and Perihelion describe the furthest and closest distance the Earth is to the Sun, respectively. The Earth is farthest from the Sun (aphelion) roughly two weeks after the summer solstice, and closest to the Sun (perihelion) roughly 2 weeks after the winter solstice.

When Is Perihelion in 2024?

Perihelion occurs on January 2, 2024.

Perihelion can fall anywhere between January 2 and January 6 in a given year. At that point in its orbit, the Earth is over 91 million from the Sun, a difference of about three million miles from its farthest point, or aphelion.

When Is Aphelion in 2024?

Aphelion occurs on July 5, 2024.

At the moment of aphelion, the Sun will be over 94 million miles away (measured center to center), or over 3 million miles farther as compared to when the Earth is closest to it (perihelion). The actual number varies year over year.


Note: A three million-mile change in relative distance may sound like a lot, but our overall distance from the Sun is so great that this otherwise large figure amounts to a drop in the vast astronomical bucket of infinite space. This slight change in distance has virtually no effect on our weather throughout the year. Learn how Farmers’ Almanac makes weather forecasts.

It’s All About The Tilt

If you ask most people which month of the year they think Earth is closest to the Sun, most would probably say during June, July, or August. But our warm weather doesn’t relate to our distance from the Sun. It’s because of the 23.5-degree tilt of the Earth’s axis that the Sun is above the horizon for different lengths of time at different seasons. The tilt determines whether the Sun’s rays strike us at a low angle or more directly.

Even though most of us learned in school that seasons are controlled by the tilt of the Earth’s axis, rather than by its distance from the Sun, many people forget. We experience summer or winter conditions based on whether our half of the Earth is pointed toward the Sun or away from it. While we’re battling ice and snow in the Northern Hemisphere, our neighbors to the south are enjoying summer, and vice versa.

Illustration of Earth orbiting Sun to reflect the different seasons.

At New York’s latitude, the more nearly-direct rays at the summer solstice of June 21st, bring about three times as much heat as the more slanting rays at the Winter Solstice on December 21. Heat received by any region is dependent upon the length of daylight and the angle of the Sun above the horizon. Hence the noticeable differences in temperatures that are registered over different parts of the world.

A Climatological Fallacy

When I attended Henry Bruckner Junior High School in The Bronx, my ninth grade earth science teacher, Mr. Shenberg, told all of us that because we were farthest from the Sun in the July and closest in January, that such a difference would tend to warm the winters and cool the summers—at least in the Northern Hemisphere.

And yet the truth of the matter is that the preponderance of large land masses in the Northern Hemisphere works the other way and actually tends to make the winters colder and the summers hotter.

So, while you’re shivering and scraping the ice off of your car’s windshield during the winter, try to remember that the Sun is actually three million miles closer than it was in July. Maybe that will help you feel a little warmer!

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Julie Peterson

amazing

WINFRED DK AGBOKAH

Need to receive lessons from your source

Abinaya

Why is this happening

Ekan

I’m from India – the South Asian Continent and we have very hot summers from March to May, and somewhere around June it starts raining, and the rain gets heavier by each month leading up to August. Then it’s moderate climate till October and from November till the beginning of February, it’s kind of cold depending on which part of India you’re living in.

Sandi Duncan

Hi Ekan,
Thank you for stopping by!

Dan Jim Selassie

So educative and informing

Shamsuddeen Bawale

Interesting

Goaca Kan Librarian

sun flares astronomical changes

GOSHEN AMAN

The effect

Ben

this is a good article

David Perkins

You have no credibility if you are using miles. Just be aware of that.

Cringus

Well. Okay then Master

Ray

The credibility is in the content. The writer presented the article in an easy to understand fashion. The article is audience-centered. Your negative criticism was unwarranted. The expository article is educative and informative; hence commendable.

garfrico

???

Nancy E McCurry

Hi, does the date of the perihelion change through time? Would it take 20,000 years for perihelion to fall at or about the same date? I see it’s around Jan 1-4 now, but I’m trying to find out many millennia ago the earth and Sun were in the same approximate relational context.

Susan Higgins

Hi Nancy, We’d have to check with our astronomer on that one! Stay tuned!

Sandi Duncan

Hi Nancy,
We checked with our astronomer and he reports:
Over time the dates of both the times when the Earth arrives at perihelion and aphelion change, because of secular variations resulting from the gravitational attractions of the other planets. The Earth’s orbit is gradually becoming more nearly circular, its eccentricity decreasing. Furthermore, our orbit is turning counterclockwise (in the direct sense) in its own plane.

At the moment, perihelion is taking place in early January and aphelion in early July. But that is not how things were thousands of years ago . . . or will be thousands of years in the future. Here are a few dates from the past.

Perihelion Aphelion
4500 BC 18 October 17 April
500 BC 27 November 28 May
1 AD 2 December 2 June
500 AD 6 December 7 June

Ellen

Wow. Thank you!

Thabang maseko

Amazing information,thanks a million…I wish more people would be made aware of this site and learn more about this

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