January 13, 2024
Light takes eight minutes to travel from the Sun to the Earth. It took the universe 13.8 billion years to make you.
Circling the Sun
Birthday · January 13, 2024
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APOD published January 13, 2024. Credit: Radoslav Zboran. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
rth's orbit around the Sun is not a circle, it's an ellipse. The point along its elliptical orbit where our fair planet is closest to the Sun is called perihelion. This year, perihelion was on January 2 at 01:00 UTC, with the Earth about 3 million miles closer to the Sun than it was at aphelion (last July 6), the farthest point in its elliptical orbit. Of course, distance from the Sun doesn't determine the seasons, and it doesn't the determine size of Sun halos. Easier to see with the Sun hidden behind a tall tree trunk, this beautiful ice halo forms a 22 degree-wide circle around the Sun, recorded while strolling through the countryside near Heroldstatt, Germany. The Sun halo's 22 degree angular diameter is determined by the six-sided geometry of water ice crystals drifting high in planet Earth's atmosphere.
Image credit: Radoslav Zboran