Neither March nor Venus …
What is the planet closest to the earth? Not necessarily the one we believe. We all grew up thinking that Venus is our closest neighbor or the planet Mars. But no. There is another planet that is much closer to the earth. She does not shine in the sky like a star and is not (yet) explored by astronauts … but she almost “borders on us”.
“”By a phenomenon of carelessness, ambiguity or group thinking, scientific popularizers have disseminated information based on an erroneous hypothesis concerning the average distance between planets “share researchers from the Center for Research and Development for US Army and NASA Engineers on Science Alert. Using a new method (the “point-line” method) and ultra precise calculations, they managed to estimate the real average distance between the earth and the other planets of the solar system. Basically, instead of only observing the nearest or the closest points between two planets, they looked at where these planets are on average over time. “”Our results show that Mercury is closer to the land on average, than Venus or Mars“Assist scientists. Mercury turns around the sun very quickly and, even if it is far away, it is more frequently on the same side as the earth.
On the cosmos scale, it is only a few hours of travel then? Everything is relative. In reality, even at its point closest, Mercury remains 77 million kilometers from the earth. But if we imagine a ship as fast as the Parker Solar Probe probe, it could theoretically reach Mercury in 5 hours at full speed. Obviously, no machine does that for the moment and Mercury remains extremely difficult to approach. But the idea that this planet could be accessible in half a day makes you dizzy, right?
According to their results, Mercury is in fact, on average, the planet closest to all the others. Yes, even Neptune, which is at the end of the solar system. This information has a real scientific interest because it pushes us to review the way in which we apprehend space.
