Earth will be at Perihelion on 4th of January; this is the closest distance from earth
to Sun. At perihelion the distance between earth and sun is close to 147.09
million km. Since Earth’s orbit eccentricity is very low at 0.016 which is very
close to circle the distance between perihelion and aphelion (furthest point
from Sun) does not differ much. The Aphelion distance of earth and Sun is
152.10 million km, making the difference just 5.01 million kilometres. This is
not much to cause any problem to us, but due to proximity to sun earth receives
7% more sunlight.
The angular size of the Sun seen from earth does not differ
much during perihelion and aphelion due to low eccentricity for earth’s orbit. The
sun subtends an angle of 0.54183 degrees during perihelion, and at aphelion
(furthest distance from sun) the angle subtended is 0.52398 degrees the difference
is very small at 0.01785 degrees.
When compared with Mercury which has highest eccentricity of
0.2056 the difference in angular size is apparent during perihelion and
aphelion.
|
Sun
|
Sun
|
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|
Max.Angular
Dia
|
Min.Angular
Dia
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||||
|
Perihelion
|
Aphelion
|
||||
|
Earth
|
0.54183
|
0.52398
|
|||
|
Mercury
|
1.7324
|
1.1414
|
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Say Hi to Sun when
you go out on January 4th!
