There has recently been some confusion over which of the planets of the Solar System is closest to Earth. <\/p>
The order of the planets in the Solar System, moving outwards from the Sun, hasn\u2019t changed.<\/p>\n
Earth has Venus<\/a> as the next planet inwards, towards the Sun<\/a>, and Mars<\/a> as the next planet going outwards from the Sun. Of those two, Venus comes closer to Earth than Mars at their respective closest approaches. So, it\u2019s still correct to say that Venus comes closer to Earth than any other planet.<\/p>\n Confusion arises when we talk about the average distance between the planets.<\/p>\n Now, Mercury, being closer to the Sun than Venus, orbits the Sun more quickly than our \u2018nearest\u2019 neighbour. Furthermore, Mercury\u2019s furthest distance from Earth (when it\u2019s on the opposite side of the Sun) is much less than the furthest distance attained by Venus.<\/p>\n These facts mean that, if we average the distance between Earth and these two planets, Mercury is, on average, closer to Earth. It turns out that Venus is, on average, 1.14 astronomical units (AU) from Earth, but Mercury is, on average, only 1.04 AU from Earth. An AU is a unit of length equal to the average distance between Earth and the Sun.<\/p>\n The recent analysis showed that, for two bodies with roughly concentric and circular orbits on the same plane, the average distance between the two bodies decreases as the radius of the inner orbit decreases.<\/p>\n This appears to be counterintuitive. What it means is that not only is Mercury the closest planet, on average, to Earth, but it\u2019s also the closest neighbour, on average, to each of the other seven planets in the Solar System!<\/p>\n But the fact that the planet Venus comes closest to Earth hasn\u2019t changed.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n Asked by: Conrad Owen, York<\/strong><\/p>\n To submit your questions email us at questions@sciencefocus.com (don\u2019t forget to include your name and location)<\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n There has recently been some confusion over which of the planets of the Solar System is closest to Earth. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":30051,"template":"","categories":[30],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/07\/the-closest-planet-to-earth-probably-not-the-one-youre-thinking-of.jpg",1200,511,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/07\/the-closest-planet-to-earth-probably-not-the-one-youre-thinking-of-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/07\/the-closest-planet-to-earth-probably-not-the-one-youre-thinking-of-300x128.jpg",300,128,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/07\/the-closest-planet-to-earth-probably-not-the-one-youre-thinking-of-768x327.jpg",768,327,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/07\/the-closest-planet-to-earth-probably-not-the-one-youre-thinking-of-1024x436.jpg",800,341,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/07\/the-closest-planet-to-earth-probably-not-the-one-youre-thinking-of.jpg",1200,511,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/07\/the-closest-planet-to-earth-probably-not-the-one-youre-thinking-of.jpg",1200,511,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"There has recently been some confusion over which of the planets of the Solar System is closest to Earth.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/30050"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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