: 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

It depends on how you define close.

If you go by the minimum distance, then yes Venus is the closest planet to earth.

However, if you go by average distance, it’s actually Mercury.

This is because Venus isn’t at it’s closest position to earth all the time. Half of its orbit it’s on the opposite side of the sun to earth. The same goes for Mercury of course, but because Mercury’s own orbit is so small, the difference between being on the same or opposite side of the sun isn’t that much, and because of that the _average_ distance from mercury to earth is less than the _average_ distance between earth and venus.

And this same math doesn’t just work for Earth. By average distance, Mercury is the closest planet to **every** planet in the solar system _and_ pluto.