After the middle of the year, specifically in early July, the Earth becomes at the farthest point from the sun, in what is known as “apocalypse”.
In this context, Osama Shalabia, Dean of the Faculty of Navigation Sciences and Space Technology and Director of the Center for Space Studies and Consultations at Cairo University, explains, in exclusive statements to “Sky News Arabia”, how the distance between the Earth and the sun changes, and how the perihelion and apogee occur.
Shalabia points out that the German Johannes Kepler (the first to set laws describing the movement of the planets), when he set his laws for the movement of the planets, described it as an orbital movement, and said that the planets revolve in “oval” and not “circular” orbits that have a fixed center and radius, which applies to All planets, comets, and other asteroids that exist, which orbit in elliptical or elliptical orbits.
perihelion
He continues: “Passage in an elliptic frame does not have a center, and therefore when the Earth rotates, the sun becomes located in one of the two foci of this elliptical orbit.
And he added: “When you are at the point closest to the Earth, this is called the perihelion, or what is known as Perihelion, and the Earth becomes at a distance of approximately 147 million kilometers (about 91.4 million miles) from the sun, and this is done in January of each year.”
Apogee
But when it is on the farthest side to the sun in that orbital motion, this is called the “aphelion”, which represents the presence of the Earth at its farthest point from the sun, in early July.
The Earth is 152 million kilometers from the sun, about 5 million kilometers from the distance that the Earth is from the sun at perihelion.
Shalabia points out that the perihelion occurs in January and the apex is in July, and he indicates that “these dates change over time, because the Earth’s rotation axis is not fixed and has sways, and gravity has other factors that cause this change according to Milankovitch’s cycles, but it occurs on A long range of tens of thousands of years, and it is clear that this perpendicularity and the tilt of the axis cause the change of seasons.
Shalabia explains, at the same time, that all the planets have the same system in terms of their proximity or distance from the Sun (aphelion and perihelion).
the speed
While the speed of the planets is greater at perihelion because gravity is higher because it is at a smaller distance, and according to Newton’s laws, the less the distance, the greater the force of attraction, and thus the speed of the movement of the planets increases, otherwise they fall into the trap of the sun’s gravity.
And vice versa, the farther it is (aphelion), the slower the movement.
Shalabia points out that the apogee and perihelion are not directly related to climate change, as the issue is related to the area of brightness on the surface and not the proximity or distance from the Earth in relation to the sun.
He pointed out that the preemptive movement and other orbital factors such as the Earth’s reeling or what is known as “the movement of the bee” are among the factors controlling change, and the mechanism of climate changes explained by the scientist Milankovitch.
The terms apogee and perihelion, perihelion and aphelion, were first coined by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in the context of describing the orbital motion of the planets, with words from the Greek present.
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