Seasons come from Earth's tilt, not its distance
Earth is actually closest to the Sun in January — the seasons are set by a 23.5° lean, not by how near we orbit.
It is a tidy-sounding idea that summer happens when Earth is closer to the Sun. It is also wrong.
The seasons exist because Earth’s axis is tilted about 23.5°. As the planet orbits, each hemisphere takes turns leaning toward the Sun — receiving more direct rays and longer days — then leaning away. The U.S. National Weather Service is blunt: “The seasons have nothing to do with how far the Earth is from the Sun.”
The clincher is the timing. Earth reaches perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun, in January — the depth of Northern Hemisphere winter. If distance ran the seasons, January would be summer everywhere.
Because the tilt always points the same way, when the north basks in summer the south has winter, and vice versa.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
