tonight, 9/20/2010
the shape of earth's orbit around the sun
Venus is the planet with the closest orbit to that of Earth.
Mars and Venus orbit closest to the earth in the order sunward to rimward: Venus, Earth, Mars.
Jupiters orbit is between Mars and Saturn's orbit. Jupiters orbit can also be said to be within the orbits of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
13.06km/s
At periapsis, that is, when it is closest to Earth in its orbit.
That would depend on what object we are talking about.
Venus
Venus' is. Mars' is next.
At the point when it is closest to the sun.
There is one single point in the Earth's orbit where it is closest to the sun. That point is called the "perihelion".
Perihelion is when the Earth is closest to the sun.