Monthly Night Sky information provided by Chris Vaughan (@Astrogeoguy) at Starry Night Education (@StarryNightEdu).
- This event has passed.
Earth at Perihelion (at 8 a.m. EST)
January 4 @ 12:00 am
The Earth will reach perihelion, its minimum distance from the sun for the year, on Saturday, January 4 at 8 a.m. EST, or 5 a.m. PST, or 13:00 GMT. At perihelion Earth will be 91.404 million miles (or 147.101 million km) from our star, about 1.67% closer than our mean distance of 1.0 Astronomical Unit. As winter-chilled Northern Hemisphere dwellers will attest, daily temperatures on Earth are not controlled by our proximity to the sun, but by the number of hours of daylight we experience.
