When Is Earth Closest To The Sun Direct

You might wonder: if we are 3 million miles closer in January than in July, shouldn’t that make a difference?

You cannot “see” Earth being closer to the sun, but you can observe two subtle effects:

The Earth's orbit around the Sun is not a perfect circle, but rather an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci. This elliptical shape, described by Kepler's laws of planetary motion, results in the Earth's distance from the Sun varying throughout the year. The closest point in this orbit is called perihelion, while the farthest point is known as aphelion.

Earth reaches its closest point to the Sun, or perihelion, around each year.