Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. Earth reaches its farthest point from the sun, aphelion, on ...

Earth sits furthest from the Sun at aphelion distance each July. This orbital shift changes sunlight by a small margin, yet it explains why summer heat peaks despite the distance.

Every year in early January, Earth reaches the closest point in its orbit to the Sun, a moment astronomers call perihelion. We are slightly nearer to our star and receiving more solar energy than we ...

CLEVELAND — Every July, Earth reaches a point in its orbit called aphelion, when our planet is at its farthest distance from the sun. This year, that distance is about 94.5 million miles, roughly 3 ...

As we get closer to the end of the year, the days get shorter and shorter. Meanwhile, they get longer and longer as we get into the spring. This is all due to the angle of the sun in our sky. The sun ...