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Perihelion

Alolan_Apples

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Today is the day that the Earth is the closet to the Sun in its orbit. If you want to know, the Earth's orbit, like the Moon's orbit, is elliptical with the Sun not in the exact center of the orbit. So there is a time when we are on Aphelion (the furthest) and a time we're on Perihelion (the closest). However, the difference is not very huge on a cosmic scale. That, and if you look into the sky, the sun is barely bigger on Perihelion than on Aphelion. It's smaller than the difference in moon sizes on Perigee and Apogee.

An interesting theory I learned about the Earth's orbit is that every 100,000 years, it changes its shape from a perfect circle to an unusually long ellipse. It could be linked to the Global Warming we feared. I'm not sure where the ice age is (when the orbit is at the longest ellipse or perfect circle), but I know the orbit is changing shape all the time. I bet that we would notice bigger differences with the Earth's orbit at the longest.
 
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