At 11:05 am IST on January 3, the Earth passed closest to the Sun for the year 2018. The event is called perihelion, derived from Greek, with 'peri' meaning 'near' and 'helios' meaning 'sun'. While the perihelion distance is 147 million km, Earth on July 6 would reach the most distant point at 152 million km, called the aphelion.