Inner orbits vs. outer orbits?

I'm trying to answer a question for an astronomy lab: "Imagine Earth as a planet with an outer orbit and Venus as a planet with an inner orbit..." I'm not quite sure what this means. I've looked up both "inner" and "outer" orbits, and I'm pretty sure this doesn't refer to either short-period/long-period orbits or to inner/outer planets (which wouldn't make sense anyways). Anyone have any other ideas?



What is the rest of the question? Mercury and Venus orbit closer to the Sun than the Earth does, so they both have inner orbits relative to the Earth. Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto have orbit's that are more distant than the Earth's. Mercury , Venus, Earth and Mars are "inner planets", Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are "outer planets.




I think you are going to have to ask your teacher/professor/teaching assistant about this because maybe it is a typo on your assignment. Perhaps it should have been written like this...





"Imagine Earth as a planet with an inner orbit and Venus as a planet with an outer orbit..."





...everyone makes mistakes, perhaps somebody made a mistake when thy wrote up your assignment.





Of course, you could tell us what it says after the "dot dot dot" and that might help us, help you with this question. You wrote...





"Imagine Earth as a planet with an outer orbit and Venus as a planet with an inner orbit..."





...what comes after those three dots?








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