Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The point on the orbit of a celestial body that is farthest from the sun.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. That point of a planet's or of a comet's orbit which is most distant from the sun: opposed to perihelion.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. That point of a planet's or comet's orbit which is most distant from the sun, the opposite point being the
perihelion .
WordNet 3.0
- n. apoapsis in solar orbit; the point in the orbit of a planet or comet that is at the greatest distance from the sun
Etymologies
- From New Latin aphēlium : Greek apo-, apo- + Greek hēlios, sun; see sāwel- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“In order for this result to be produced, the earth must reach that part of its orbit known as aphelion, where the distance from its controlling centre is greatest, so that the eccentricity of the moon's orbit is always an indication of the position of the earth in its relation to the sun.”
“At the opposite point of its orbit, where it will be in "aphelion," or farthest from the sun, the sun will only appear about 19 minutes in diameter.”
“The first colonists arrived only to learn that they had to contend with a winter twenty times the duration of summer and so extreme it froze the atmosphere to the surface well after aphelion to the primary.”
“Criminy, I almost forgot: on July 4th, at roughly 08: 00 UT, the Earth was at aphelion.”
“So whether or not Pluto is moving towards perihelion or aphelion that doesn't determine its "spring" or "autumn", does it?”
“Comets, with their hugely eccentric orbits, may pass far beyond the outer planets to spend their aphelion in the vast interstellar darkness beyond the Kuiper Belt .”
“In 12,900 years, the North will have colder winters because Earth will be furthest from the Sun (aphelion) in January.”
“When the orbit is more elliptical, the perihelion is closer to the Sun and the aphelion is farther away than when the orbit is more circular.”
“Scotsman James Croll combined the eccentricity of the orbit and the precession and in the 1860s and 1870s presented his ideas on the effects of the cycles and how they might influence climate, especially the colder winters when they correspond with the aphelion.”
“Figure 1: Position of the equinoxes, solstices, aphelion, and perihelion on the Earth's orbit.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘aphelion’.
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Lions and tigers and—Well, just lions, truthfully.
million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, nonillion, decillion, undecillion, duodecillion and 66 more...
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Astronomical Words
Words used in Astronomy
perihelion, perigee, apoapsis, periastron, apastron, apsis, zenith, aphelion, perturbations, barycenter, equinox, nadir and 21 more...
chained_bear "... in astronomy, is that part of a planet's orbit which is at the greatest distance from the sun, being that end of the greater axis of the elliptic orbit of the planet, most remote from the focus wherein the sun is placed; and is, therefore, opposed to Perihelion.
"The times of the aphelia of the primary planets may be known by their apparent diameter appearing the smallest, and also by their moving with the least velocity, in a given time. They may likewise be found by calculation, which De Lande, De la Caille, and other astronomical writers treat of at large."
—Falconer's New Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1816), 19 Oct 12, 2008
milosrdenstvi Surprisingly, this word is pronounced properly "a-phelion" instead of the common "ap-helion", as in Greek the pi + rough breathing elides to phi. Granted, in the more ancient pronunciation phi *is in fact pronounced as an aspirated pi, but that approaches pedantry. For comparison see ephemeral. Sep 19, 2008