The Closest Planet To Neptune Turns Out To Be... Mercury

It makes sense, but it's also annoying. Now instead of which planet is closest, the question should be which planets in our solar system have the closest orbital radius to ours? And then it can still be mars and venus. Thankfully in school the question was based from the sun outward. In which case the order isn't fussed with.

This article reads like a smarmy kid who just wants to say the clichéd "acktually" with it's technical truth.

It's like asking "how much of the earth is water" vs "how much of the earth's surface is covered by water". Those are two very different answers, but if you ask people the first with no context they will answer with the answer for the second most of the time because it's the thing we've heard so much from schooling days.

The linked source is way more informative: https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/Online/30593/Venus-is-not-Earth-s-closest-neighbor

Interesting, I remember there was a CGP Grey video on this if anyone's interested: https://vid.priv.au/watch?v=SumDHcnCRuU

Mindblowing. I never even thought of things that way!