Aphelion is not to blame for the cold weather
The Sunday Nation
Nairobi,
05 June 2022
The following message is circulating in the Internet Social Media,
especially WhatsApp: “From today till August 22 this year, it will be
colder than previous years. They call it Aphelion phenomenon. Starting
today at 05.27 we will experience the APHELION PHENOMENON, where the
Earth will be very far from the Sun. We cannot see the phenomenon, but
we can feel its impact. This will last until August 2022. We will
experience cold weather more than the previous cold weather… The
distance from Earth to the Sun is 5 light minutes or 90,000,000 km. The
phenomenon of aphelion to 152,000,000 km. 66% further.”
When this message reached me, my first reaction was: How come this is
also the hottest period in Northern regions of the Earth? It is summer
in Europe, Northern Asia and North America.
That message contains a few truths, a lot of half-truths and
misrepresentations. It is true that there is something called aphelion
(not aphelion phenomenon). This is the farthest point that the Earth
reaches from the sun.
Like all other orbiting objects, the Earth does not travel around the
sun in a circular orbit. The path is an ellipse with the sun at one of
the two focal points. Thus, the Earth-Sun distance is not constant. The
closest point to the sun is called perihelion and the farthest one
aphelion.
The Earth reaches perihelion in early January when it is about 147
million kilometres from the sun and aphelion in early July when it is
about 152 million km. The variation in distance is just 3.5 per cent
(not the 66pc claimed in the WhatsApp message). The author of the
message mixed up the perihelion distance in miles (90 million) and the
aphelion one in kilometres (152 million).
The actual dates of perihelion and aphelion vary from one year to the
next and, in 2022, the Earth will reach it closest point to the sun at
10:00am (Nairobi Time) on 4th July. Next year it will be on
the 6th; and then the 5th in 2024; and so on.
Perihelion and aphelion are not parking spots where the Earth goes to
rest for several weeks as implied in the WhatsApp message! The planet is
in continuous motion so it just crosses these points without stopping.
How long does a moving object take to cross a point on its path? That’s
how long aphelion will last on 4th July.
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