The Earth is now at the farthest point of its orbit around sun. We are approximately 5m kilometres further from our central star now than in January.Because Earth's orbit is slightly elliptical, this happens. Aphelion is the point at which Earth is closest to the sun. It is the exact moment this year, 23.27 BST on the 5th of July. Although it may seem strange to us northern hemisphere residents that we are closer than usual to the sun during mid-winter, this is due to the tilt of the Earth's axis, which determines the seasons and not our distance from them. The sun is more concentrated in northern summer when the hemisphere tilts sunward.The gravitational influence from other planets causes the Earth's orbit to change gradually over many thousands of years. According to some estimates, Earth's eccentricity could have been three times greater at certain times in distant history. This would have caused a 24% variation of the strength of sunlight at different times during the year. This would have had an impact on the seasons.
