Earth Farthest From Sun Thursday

Earth Is Farthest From the Sun This Week

by Tariq Malik, SPACE.com Managing Editor

Date: 04 July 2012 Time: 07:00 AM ET

The 'blue marble' of earth gets a makeover in this view of the arctic as seen by the Suomi NPP satellite. Image released June 18, 2012. CREDIT: NASA/GSFC/Suomi NPP. View full size image

With a heat wave roasting parts of the United States this week, it may seem strange that our planet is now actually at its farthest point from the sun this year. Strange, but true.
According to the U.S. Naval Observatory, the Earth will reach a point in its orbit called "aphelion" at 12 a.m. EDT (0400 GMT) on Thursday (July 5). The Earth's aphelion is the spot where it is the farthest from the sun that it can get in a single year — about 94.5 million miles (152 million kilometers).

MORE: http://www.space.com/16425-earth-farthest-from-sun-2012-aphelion.html

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