Jan. 3 - latest sunrise was today (even though shortest day occured was 2 weeks ago. The Sun will reach perihelion, its closet distance to Earth, tomorrow, 1/4/2005, at approx. 18 UTC (11AM MDT). Even though the Sun is about 3 million kilometers closer to the Earth, the tilt of the Earth causes the Sun's rays to travel through more atmosphere, thus offseting the Sun's increased brightness.
From a geocentric perspective in Utah, the Sun transits and reaches its closest point at about 12:45 pm MDT. As compared to July 2006, the Sun's light takes about a 1/3 of second less to reach the Earth.
- That's not counting the persistent cloud layer in the last 1000ft. -:) - Canopus56(Kurt) __________________________________________ Yahoo! DSL Â Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less. dsl.yahoo.com