Question

The distance between Earth and Jupiter at the closest point is 5.9 × 108 kilometers, and the distance between Earth and Mercury at the closest point is 7.7 × 107 kilometers.The closest distance between Earth and is greater than the closest distance between Earth and by approximately times.

Answer 1

I think the last sentence has blanks we're supposed to fill in:

The closest distance between Earth and _________ is greater than the closest distance between Earth and ______ by approximately _______ times.

The distance to Jupiter is greater, so that goes in the first blank, Mercury in the second.  The third gets the quotient of the distances:

$f = \dfrac{5.9 \times 10^8}{7.7 \times 10^7} = .766 \times 10 = 7.66$

The closest distance between Earth and Jupiter  is greater than the closest distance between Earth and Mercury  by approximately 7.66 times.