: 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

Ok, so all the planets orbit around the sun independently on different paths and at different speeds. Because of this each planet complete a an orbit at different rates. For the sake of a relevant time, I will use “earth days” to describe the orbit time, Mercury takes 87.97 days, Venus is 224.7 days, the earth is 365.26, and Mars is a 686.69 days.

So if Mars and Venus are on the opposite side of the sun and than Mercury and Venus, Mercury could be the closes planet to the earth temporarily.

Now also note, that there outer “gas” planets orbits are so far from the inner “rocky” planets, that even when the brief moment when the Earth and Jupiter are aligned, it will not be closer to the earth than any of the outer planets.