Who writes this stuff? "twice as close"? What does that even mean? Does it mean that if the referenced distance is say 40,000 km then twice as close is 20,000 km or 80,000 km? I really hate "science" writers.
Why, when you ask people how FAR some location is away, do they tell you how many minutes it takes to get there ?
I agree. Substituting “twice as close” for half-the-distance is confusing and probably inaccurate.
For example, a 25% increase is the opposite of a 20% reduction. (Increasing 100 by 25% yields 125. Decreasing 125 by 20% yields 100.)
The language in the article is the popular way to describe things but is confusing to say the least.