perigee

plural perigees

1. astronomyThe point, in an orbit about the Earth, that is closest to the Earth: the periapsis of an Earth orbiter.

   1 more example

   As the moon wheels around Earth every 28 days and shows us a progressively greater and then stingier slice of its sun-lightened face, the distance between the moon and Earth changes, too. At the nearest point along its egg-shaped orbit, its perigee, the moon may be 26,000 miles closer to us than it is at its far point.

   2014 September 7, Natalie Angier, “The Moon comes around again [print version: Revisiting a moon that still has secrets to reveal: Supermoon revives interest in its violent origins and hidden face, International New York Times, 10 September 2014, p. 8]”, in The New York Times

2. broadlyastronomyThe point, in an orbit about any planet, that is closest to the planet: the periapsis of any satellite.

   [Nereid’s] apogee—farthest point from Neptune—is five times the distance of its perigee—its closest point.

   2010, Ruth Walker, Mary M. Shaffrey, et al., Exploring Space: The High Frontier, Jones & Bartlett Learning, →ISBN, page 129

   2 more examples

   Conjunctions of I and II [Io and Europa] occur when they are near perigee and apogee respectively; conjunctions of II and III [Europa and Ganymede] occur when II [Europa] is near perigee.

   1995, John H. Rogers, The Giant Planet Jupiter, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 335

   The resolution of the images obtained by this American probe [Messenger] will depend on its altitude [above Mercury] at any one time: about ten meters at perigee (200km altitude), but only one 1 km at apogee (15000km).

   2002, Serge Brunier, Solar System Voyage, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 36

3. possibly archaic outside astrologyThe point, in any trajectory of an object in space, where it is closest to the Earth.