Earth closest to the sun today in event known as “perihelion”

Earth is at the closest point it will be all year to the sun today say astronomers.

Wednesday marks what is known in the year as the perihelion, the point in the Earth's orbit that it gets closest to the sun.

Few in the northern hemisphere would suspect that as so, given the current cold temperatures.

Space.com reported that during the perihelion, the Earth is 91,402,560 miles from the sun.

The average distance between the Earth and the sun is 93 million miles with the aphelion, the farthest distance, being 94,508,960 miles away.

NBC News said that the difference in the size of the sun from Earth is only 3.4 percent larger, too small to see with the naked eye.

Temperatures and weather are not affected by the proximity of Earth to the sun.

Instead, the tilt of the Earth's axis is what determines seasons.

It is said that Earth's orbit is nearly completely circular, never straying so close or so far as to create different weather conditions.

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