Time and Distance

At 3:06 PM today (CST) Earth will reach the point in its orbit when it's farthest from the sun. In a sense, it's like our planet will be at the top of a gravitational hill and will then begin to fall toward the sun until January 2, 2024, when it will reach its closest point.

This also brings us to another Word of the Day.  Astronomers call this phenomenon aphelion.  

At aphelion our home planet will be 94,506,364 miles (152,093,251 km) away from the sun.  That is more than 3 million miles further away than when earth is closest - known as perihelion.  The actual distance varies a bit year-over-year.

Coincidentally, average temperature of Earth at aphelion is about 4^o F (2.3^o C) higher than it is at perihelion. Earth is actually warmer when we're farther from the Sun!