91.4 million miles may not seem like a short distance for humans but for Earth it constituted the closest point to the Sun during its year-long orbit, which was reached on 3 January 2019 and caused an outburst of comments on social media.
Earth’s perihelion takes place in early January, as the change in the distance between the two bodies is achieved due to the tilt in the Earth’s axis. The Earth’s orbit is not a perfect circle, but elliptical.
Perihelion doesn’t affect weather conditions, season or temperature on Earth. However, for some social media users it didn’t seem to matter, as the phenomenon led to somewhat apocalyptic comments, as well as sarcastic reactions.
Daniel Brown, Associate Professor in Astronomy and Science Communication School of Science and Technology at the UK’s Nottingham Trent University, called the phenomenon a “super sun.”
According to astronomers, night sky observers will also be able to witness a shower of shooting stars — the Quadrantid meteor shower – which will peak on 4 January 2019.
The International Meteor Organisation (IMO) predicts that the shower will reach its peak at 2h20m UT (2:20am GMT) GMT on 4 January 2019.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
