: I just learned that mercury is in fact the closest planet to the earth. What is this madness and since when?

Question

: I just learned that mercury is in fact the closest planet to the earth. What is this madness and since when?

In: 3690

Answer 1

Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun.

At any given time, the closest planet to Earth will depend on where the planets are in their orbits. If Mars or Venus is on the other side of the Sun from Earth, then that’s actually a pretty huge distance (very roughly twice the distance from Earth to the Sun) even though Earth’s orbit is between the orbits of Venus and Mars.

However, because Mercury orbits close to the Sun, the distance from Earth to Mercury is always around the distance from Earth to the Sun.