: I just learned that mercury is in fact the closest planet to the earth. What is this madness and since when?
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Most planets are closest to Earth at some point in time.
Your statement is incorrect, Mercury is not the closest planet to Earth, it is the planet that is closest to Earth the most.
The reason how this works is because planets orbit the sun, Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, there is no trickery here, as all the planets orbit the sun, no other planet is closer at any point in time. As Mercury is the closest, it’s orbit is the shortest. In a given amount of time, out of all the planets, Mercury completes the highest number of orbits. This is the crucial part.
The distance between planets constantly changes between two distances, the closest distance, and the furthest distance. The furthest distance would be when the two planets are on the far side of the sun to each other. With the closest being when they are in the same side of the sun to each other.
Since Mercury revolves around the sun the quickest, as it has the shortest orbit, Mercury is on the same side of the sun to us much more frequently than any other planet. It is at its closest point a higher number of times than any other planet.
Every other planets orbit takes longer, and so all the other planets are only at the closest point to Earth for a shorter amount of time.
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