Have you ever looked up at the night sky and wondered how far the moon is from us? It’s much farther than you might think! The average distance from Earth to the moon is an incredible 238,855 miles. To give you a better idea of just how far that is, let’s compare it to some things you might be familiar with.
Let’s imagine the Earth and Moon were a lot smaller. If we could shrink the distance from Earth to the Moon down to just one meter, Earth would be the size of a quarter, and the Moon would be the size of a pea.
Now let’s talk about why the Moon’s distance from Earth changes. The Moon doesn’t orbit Earth in a perfect circle. Instead, it follows an elliptical, or egg-shaped, path. This means that sometimes the Moon is closer to Earth, and sometimes it’s farther away.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, NASA’s Apollo missions sent humans to the Moon for the very first time. These brave astronauts traveled the 238,855 miles to the Moon in a spaceship.
So the next time you look up at the Moon, remember just how far away it is. It’s not just a hop, skip, and a jump away - it’s a quarter of a million miles away! And yet, with the power of science and exploration, humans have managed to make the journey. Who knows what other incredible distances we’ll travel in the future?