What is the perihelion?
Q: What is the perihelion?
A: The perihelion is the point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid or comet that is nearest to the sun. It is the opposite of aphelion, which is the point farthest from the sun.
Q: What does "peri" mean?
A: Peri comes from Greek and means "near".
Q: What does "Helios" refer to?
A: Helios refers to the Greek god of the sun.
Q: How do orbits differ from circles?
A: Orbits are approximately elliptical (a kind of non-circular) while circles are closed curves such as an ellipse.
Q: When does Earth come closest to the Sun?
A: Earth comes closest to the Sun every year around January 3.
Farthest from Sun every year around July 4.
Q: How much difference in distance between Earth's nearest and farthest points from Sun? A: The difference in distance between Earth's nearest point to the Sun in January and farthest point from Sun in July is 3.1 million miles (5 million kilometers).
Q: Does Earth's distance from Sun cause seasons change? A:No,Earth’s seasons come and go mainly because Earth does not rotate with its axis exactly upright with respect to plane of our world’s orbit around sun, rather than due to differences in distance between it and sun.
