Perihelion and Aphelion 2027-2028: Earth Closest to the Sun

The Earth will next be at its closest to the Sun, perihelion, at 08:02 IST on 3 January 2027, when the two centres will be 14,71,04,592 km apart, about 147.1 million km. Six months later comes the farthest point, aphelion: 10:35 IST on 5 July 2027, at 15,21,00,481 km, about 152.1 million km. Between the two the distance changes by 49,95,889 km, or 3.4%.

Textbooks often give the dates as 3 January and 4 July. The instants on this page were computed from the JPL DE421 ephemeris for every year from 1900 to 2052. They show that those two dates are only the commonest ones, and that the Moon is one reason the day moves. They also show how the same ellipse makes one solar month of the Indian calendar two days shorter than another.

2026, 2027 and 2028 in Indian Time

Distances run from the centre of the Sun to the centre of the Earth, and instants are cut to the minute in IST. Both 2026 events are already past. In 2028 the perihelion falls on 5 January 2028, two days later in the month than in 2027, and the Moon accounts for most of that gap, as the section after next shows.

Is the Earth Always Closest on 3 January?

No. Of the 153 perihelia from 1900 to 2052, by Indian time, 52 fall on 3 January: about 34%, the most of any day, but nowhere near all. The perihelion has fallen as early as 1 January and as late as 5 January. The aphelion spreads over six July dates, from the 2nd to the 7th, and the 4th is its commonest day.

The 2020s show how much it wanders: perihelion on the 5th, 2nd, 4th, 4th, 3rd, 4th, 3rd, 3rd, 5th and 2nd of January from 2020 to 2029. A date given for the whole world in UTC can also differ from the Indian date when the instant falls in the early hours of IST.

The Moon Moves the Date

The orbit that follows a smooth ellipse is not the Earth’s own but that of the Earth-Moon pair, measured at their common centre of mass, the barycentre. The Earth’s centre circles that point once a month, a few thousand kilometres from it, and so it reaches its least distance from the Sun earlier or later than the barycentre does, depending on where the Moon happens to be.

Over 1900 to 2052 the Earth’s perihelion lands up to 32 hours either side of the barycentre’s, and its aphelion up to 34 hours. In 2027 the Earth gets there 24 h before the barycentre. In 2028 it gets there 30 h after, which is what pushes that perihelion onto the 5th. With the Moon’s wobble taken out, the barycentre’s perihelion falls only on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th of January across the whole span.

A Slow Drift Through the Calendar

Measured from one barycentre perihelion to the next, the orbit’s own year averages 365.2599 days over the span, longer than the calendar’s average year. From 1901 to 2099 every fourth year is a leap year, so the calendar averages 365.25 days, and the perihelion slips later by about 1.0 day per century. The Gregorian rule also drops three leap days in four centuries (1900 and 2100 have none), which brings its average to 365.2425 days and makes the long-run slip about 1.7 days per century. So the “3 January” of the textbooks is a figure for the present era and does not hold forever.

Closest in January, Yet Winter in India

By the inverse-square law, the sunlight falling on the top of the atmosphere at perihelion is about 6.9% stronger than at aphelion (2027 figures). Yet perihelion comes in the northern winter. At every perihelion from 1900 to 2052 the Sun stood 10 to 15 degrees past the December solstice point of the tropical zodiac, some ten to fifteen days after the shortest day. The seasons follow the tilt of the Earth’s axis, which sets how high the Sun climbs and how long the day lasts, not this distance. The solstices, and the sidereal Makara ingress the panchang counts Uttarayana from, are set out on the Uttarayan and Dakshinayan page.

Why Dhanu Is the Shortest Solar Month

The Indian solar month is the Sun’s stay in one sidereal sign. Near perihelion the Earth moves fastest along its orbit, so the Sun appears to move fastest along the zodiac and takes the least time to cross a sign. At every perihelion from 1900 to 2052 the Sun stood between 17 and 21 degrees of sidereal Dhanu (Sagittarius, Lahiri), and at every aphelion it stood in sidereal Mithuna (Gemini). The table below, built from the Sun’s sign entries in the site’s 2026–2028 ingress data, shows the result.

Dhanu is the shortest at 29.45 days and Makara the next at 29.54. Mithuna is the longest at 31.45, about 48 hours longer than Dhanu. The Sun’s apparent motion peaks near 1.0196 degrees a day around perihelion and falls to about 0.9531 around aphelion, a difference of about 7%. The curve is so flat near its top and bottom that, in 2026–2028, the day of the fastest or slowest motion falls up to 8 days away from the perihelion or aphelion itself, which is why only the rate is given here.

The Sun’s month in Dhanu is the Dhanu Kharmas of the north Indian almanacs, so in every year from 1900 to 2052 the Earth reaches perihelion inside Kharmas; the Kharmas December 2026 page gives this winter’s dates. The amanta lunar months of 2026–2028 run from 29.28 to 29.81 days, so the shortest solar month is shorter than the longest lunar one; the lunar month length page works out what that does to the calendar. The Vedic Sun sign dates page lists the days the Sun enters each sidereal sign.

In Brief

• Next perihelion: 08:02 IST on 3 January 2027, 14,71,04,592 km
• Next aphelion: 10:35 IST on 5 July 2027, 15,21,00,481 km
• 2028: perihelion 5 January 2028, aphelion 4 July 2028
• Range, 1900–2052: 1–5 January and 2–7 July; 3 January in about 34% of years
• The Moon’s share: up to 32 hours either way
• In the panchang: perihelion falls with the Sun in Dhanu, the shortest solar month (29.45 days)

The Moon’s nearest point, perigee, is set against each full moon on the supermoon 2026–2028 page, and the closest approaches of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn to the Earth on the opposition dates page. The year’s observances are on the festival calendar. In Hindi: उपसौर और अपसौर 2027-2028: पृथ्वी सूर्य के सबसे निकट कब.