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LiveScience
LiveScience
Briley Lewis

Which planet is closest to the sun?

Mercury Sun Earth Venus Neptune
An illustration of planets in the solar system.

There are eight planets in the solar system, and each travels on its own path around the sun. But of these planets, which is nearest to the sun?

Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, followed by Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Mercury orbits at only 0.387 astronomical units (AU), or about 36 million miles (58 million kilometers), from our star, on average. For comparison, Earth is 1 AU from the sun, and Neptune is a whopping 30 AU from our star.

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