How Far Away The Moon Is
Let’s talk about the moon. You’ve seen it. It’s that big, pale thing in the sky. But have you ever really thought about how far away it actually is? Spoiler: it’s stupidly fa...
Let’s talk about the moon. You’ve seen it. It’s that big, pale thing in the sky. But have you ever really thought about how far away it actually is?
Spoiler: it’s stupidly far. The average distance is about 238,855 miles. That’s roughly 30 Earths lined up end-to-end. You could fit every single planet in the solar system between us and the moon, with room to spare for a few dwarf planets.
A road trip you don’t want to take
Imagine driving to the moon at 60 miles per hour. No bathroom breaks. No coffee stops. You’d be in the car for about 166 days. Non-stop. You’d need a really good playlist.
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Now think about walking. At a brisk 3 miles per hour, it’d take you nearly nine years. You’d get there just in time for a new hairstyle. Your shoes would be dust by then.
Speed it up a bit
What about a jet plane? A typical commercial jet flies at 550 mph. That’s still 18 days of non-stop flying. You’d watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy about fifteen times before you landed. And that’s just the extended editions.
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The Apollo astronauts made it in three days. That’s insanely fast. They were going about 25,000 mph. Try wrapping your head around that speed. Your brain might hurt.
Light speed feels slow
Even light takes time. It zips from the moon to Earth in about 1.3 seconds. That’s a cosmic ping-pong match. If the moon suddenly vanished, we wouldn’t know for over a second. That’s a weird, scary thought.
Radio signals? Same delay. Talk to an astronaut on the moon, and you’ll wait 2.6 seconds for a reply. That’s not dramatic, but it’s enough to make you say “Hello…? Hello…?” like a bad phone call.
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But here’s the kicker
The moon is slowly drifting away. It’s moving about 1.5 inches farther from us every year. That’s the width of your thumb. In 50 million years, we won’t have total solar eclipses anymore. They’ll be annular—just a ring of fire in the sky. Bummer.
So the next time you look up, remember: that little glowing dot is really, really, really far away. It’s close enough to touch with your eyes, but far enough to make your brain feel small. That’s the fun part.
Go ahead. Stick your thumb up at the moon. It’s exactly 1.5 inches away from where it was last year. And that’s awesome.
