POLOKWANE – WhatsApp and social media users should be warned against a viral message doing the rounds regarding the ‘aphelion phenomenon’

The message states that “from tomorrow till August, it will be colder than previous years” due to the ‘aphelion phenomenon’.

The message goes on to warn that due to the phenomenon, when Earth is the furthest from the sun, “we will experience cold weather more than the previous cold weather, which will have an impact on flu, cough, shortness of breath, etc”.

Africa Check have labelled the post as fake news, stating that an aphelion occurs annually and is not unique to 2022.

“An object’s aphelion is the point in its orbit around the sun when it is furthest away from the sun. Both perihelion and aphelion happen once a year, and there is nothing unusual about Earth’s aphelion in 2022,” their report states.

As a result, the southern hemisphere won’t be experiencing “cold weather more than the previous cold weather” as it enters winter.

“The message posted on social media gets a number of facts about aphelion wrong. It claims: “The distance from Earth to the Sun is five light minutes or 90 000 000km,” but the Earth is roughly 150 million kilometres from the sun, according to the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration,” Africa Check researcher Keegan Leech said.

He added that because aphelion occurs during the southern hemisphere’s winter, ‘the Earth has further to travel between that hemisphere’s winter solstice and the spring equinox’.

“This means that aphelion causes winter to last longer than summer in the southern hemisphere, but this does not mean that winters are colder in the southern hemisphere,” Leech concluded.