Explain gravitational pull of aphelion vs. Perihelion for Earth (technically it's an Earth Science question)

The answer is atmosphere. there are four spheres of the earth: 1. geosphere (from greek word 'geo' = ground), 2. hydrosphere (from greek word 'hydro' = water), 3. biosphere (from greek word 'bio' = life), and 4. atmosphere (from greek word 'atmo' = air). a magnetosphere is a region of space around astronomical objects controlled by the magnetic field of that object. through the process of elimination, since lightning is present in the air, it can be found in the atmosphere.

The soviet union beat the us to the first successful launch, with the october 4, 1957, orbiting of sputnik 1, and later beat the us to have the first human in earth orbit, yuri gagarin, on april 12, 1961. the "race" peaked with the july 20, 1969, us landing of the first humans on the moon with apollo 11