Suppose there was a bizarro Earth that shared our orbit. Let’s also “ignore” any effect of it on us, gravitationally. I.e. it’s just a point. Now if bizzaro

Suppose there was a bizarro Earth that shared our orbit. Let’s also “ignore” any effect of it on us, gravitationally. I.e. it’s just a point. Now if bizzaro Earth is on the opposite side of the Sun, it’s 2 au’s away. If it’s on top of us, it’s zero. To make things fair, let’s take an ensemble average of bizarro earths over our entire orbit. So Mercury is closer to Earth than Earth is, if you’re gonna be “fair” about it.