Even a small move closer to the sun could have a huge impact. That's because warming would cause glaciers to melt, raising sea levels and flooding most of the planet. Without land to absorb some of the sun's heat, temperatures on Earth would continue to rise.

In short: absolutely nothing would happen. This is a common scientific misconception that assumes Earth's orbit is a perfect circle. In reality, Earth's orbit is an elliptical path, meaning the distance between the Earth and the Sun fluctuates by about 3 million miles (5 million kilometers) every year. At "Perihelion" (closest point, usually in January), the Earth is roughly 91.4 million miles from the Sun, while at "Aphelion" (farthest point, in July), it is about 94.5 million miles away. A change of just one inch (approximately 2.5 centimeters) is completely negligible—it is billions of times smaller than the natural annual variation we experience without any noticeable effect on our climate. The "Habitable Zone" or "Goldilocks Zone" around our Sun is millions of miles wide, not inches. For the Earth to experience significant, catastrophic changes such as the evaporation of the oceans or the melting of the crust, the orbit would have to shift by several hundred thousand miles. So, if the Earth were moved one inch closer to the Sun tonight, the change in solar radiation reaching the surface would be far too small to be measured by even the most sensitive scientific instruments in 2026.