Consider the sandwich as a percentage of your whole life, and you'll get an inkling of the relative distances involved. Above planet, Mars, is right above Venus. Mars looks close to Venus in the sky, but at 180 million miles away it's about twice the distance from Earth as Venus. Venus is the second planet from the sun. Mars is the fourth.
Planets are, of course, in orbit around the sun.
Right now, Venus is on the same side of the sun as Earth. Mars is on the other side of the sun, so the red planet is about as far away as it gets from us. Venus is about as close as it gets. At the top of our stack of astronomical objects is the beautiful star cluster called the Praesepe, or Beehive, cluster of stars. Stars are born in enormous hydrogen clouds called nebulas.