Earth at its farthest from the sun this 4th of July weekend

ROANOKE, Va. – Even though we're keeping the heat going, the earth will be at its farthest point from the sun during its elliptical orbit. At 94.5 million miles, Earth is roughly 17,000 round trips between New York and Los Angeles from the sun.

The earth will reach perihilion, or its closest point to the sun, in January. That's when it will be about 91.4 million miles away. This goes to show that distance from the sun doesn't determine our seasons.

Our seasons boil down the earth's tilt and where the sun is positioned in relation to that. 

The first day of summer was roughly two weeks ago, at which point the sun was directly over the Tropic of Cancer. This imaginary line passes through parts of Mexico, the Bahamas, northern Africa, Saudi Arabia and India.

Since then, we've lost only four minutes of daylight. As we continue to orbit the sun, we'll lose daylight during the approach of fall.