gridlore: Doug looking off camera with a grin (doug couch)
Douglas Berry ([personal profile] gridlore) wrote2003-01-03 06:28 pm

Happy Perihelion!

From The Bad Astronomer

On January 4 at 05:00 Universal Time (January 3 at 9 p.m. Pacific Time), the Earth reaches perihelion,
or the point in its orbit where it is closest to the Sun. According to the Naval Observatory, the US's official keeper of such knowledge, the Earth will be 0.983320381 astronomical units from the Sun at that time, where an AU is the average distance of the Earth to the Sun. One AU is defined as a distance of 149,597,870.691 kilometers, so at perihelion
we'll be 147,102,635.20 kilometers from the Sun, give or take a significant digit or two.
kengr: (Default)

[personal profile] kengr 2003-01-03 06:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Gee, sounds like we are getting close to the 100 diameter limit of sol :-)