What is the point on the earths orbit when it is closest to the sun?

Answer 1

What?? That would be the sun, right? ________________________ Orbits are not circular; they are elliptical. An orbiting planet is alternately closer the the Sun and farther from it.

There is a special word that we use to mean the point in an object's orbit in which it is closest to the Sun. That's "perihelion"; "peri-" meaning "near", and "Helios" from the Greek word for the Sun. The antonym is "aphelion", meaning "farthest point from the Sun" in the planetary orbit.

Answer 2

Short Answer:

There is always one point on Earth where the Sun is directly overhead and that point is closest to the Sun. Technically, it is called the subsolar point (See related links.) and it always occurs between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.

There can be some subtle complications to the answer which are explained below.

Longer Answer:

At any given instant in time, the point on Earth's surface that is closest to the Sun will be a point within the Earth's tropics (Tropic of Cancer in the north, Tropic of Capricorn in the south). It is always at the longitude experiencing solar noon. It is always at the latitude at which the sun is exactly at the zenith.

Now, the complication occurs if you get technical and you want to take into account the fact that the Earth is not smooth and if you are on a mountain, you can be technically closer to the Sun than at sea level.

If you search around for mountains with a peak well above sea level in the region of the tropics, you can find one, Mt. Chimborazo, Ecuador. (Mount Everest is the highest mountain above sea level, but the Earth and sea level actually bulge at the equator giving Chimborazo almost 2.5 kilometers greater distance from the center of the Earth than Everest.) Since Chimborazo is one degree off the equator, near the equinox, its peak will be the point on Earth closest to the Sun. At other times, with the Earth's tilting toward the Sun, this will not be the case.

If one wants to know the point on Earth that gets closest to the Sun ant ANY time, one must look for a point near the Tropic of Cancer. Then the Earth is at perihelion, around January 4, and only 147,098,291 km (91,402,640 miles) from the Sun, 2.5 million km closer than at equinox. This is a very complicated geometry problem that has not been yet answered, but one might start by looking for a peak right on the Tropic of Cancer.

Answer 3

"Perigee". "Peri-" is the prefix meaning "near", and the abbreviation "G" refers to the gravity of the Earth. So "perigee" means "near Earth".

The opposite term "apogee" means the farthest point in an orbit AWAY from Earth.

The corresponding terms "perihelion" and "aphelion" use the suffix "helios", the Greek name for the Sun. They mean "closest point to the Sun in an orbit" and "furthest point from the Sun in an orbit".

Answer 4

When the moon is at its closest point relative to the Earth, it is called the perigee. When it is at the perigee, the moon is approximately 362,600 km (225,309 miles) from the Earth. When the moon is at its farthest point, it is called the apogee. When it is the apogee, the moon is approximately 405,400 km (251,903 miles) from the Earth.

Answer 5

The day with the most daylight hours is the summer solstice which falls on June 20th or 21st, depending on the year. The day with the least hours of daylight is the winter solstice which falls on December 20th or 21st. Days of equal number of daylight and dark are the spring and fall equinoxes, which are March 20th or 21st and September 20th or 21st, respectively.

Submitted by Mike Mayville

Answer 6

Earth is closest to the sun at what is called perihelion. Compare this to aphelion, which is the point in earth's orbit where it is the greatest distance from the sun. A link can be found below to the Wikipedia post on the planet earth. The characteristics of the blue planet are in a concise list in this well-written article.

Answer 7

We call this "perihelion", from the Greek "peri" meaning "near", and "Helios", the Greek name for the Sun. This is typically on January 4 each year, but this can vary a day either way depending on the cycle of leap years.

You can see the actual perihelion and aphelion dates, and the dates for the solstices and equinoxes, on the US Naval Observatory web page "Earth's Seasons".

Answer 8

It is between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. From the March equinox until the September equinox it is between the Tropic of Cancer and the equator, and from the September equinox until the March equinox it is between the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn.

Answer 9

The closest point an orbital object gets to the Earth is called perigee.

Answer 10

The closest point of approach to the Sun is called "perihelion", and for the Earth, it happens around January 4 each year.