How Many Kilometres from Earth to the Moon?
The Moon doesn't have a distance; it has a range. Its orbit is an ellipse, swinging from 356,500 km at its closest to 406,700 km at its furthest — and that swing is where supermoons, micromoons, and the length of a blood moon all come from. Everything famous about the Moon's appearance is hiding in those 50,000 kilometres.
Slide the Moon along its real orbit
The orbit is an ellipse, so the distance changes every single night — by more than 50,000 km across the month. Watch the Moon's apparent size change with it (disc shown to relative scale).
A "supermoon" is nothing more exotic than a full moon landing near the left end of this slider; a "micromoon" is one near the right. Same Moon, different night.
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One question, three correct answers
Ask "how far is the Moon?" and an astronomer will ask which night you mean. The average — the number on every flashcard — is 384,400 km (238,855 miles). At perigee, the orbit's closest point, the Moon can come within about 356,500 km; at apogee it retreats to around 406,700 km. A full moon at perigee looks up to 14% wider and about 30% brighter than one at apogee — the entire "supermoon" phenomenon is just this ellipse photographed at the right moment.
For getting there: light crosses the gap in 1.28 seconds, the Apollo crews took about three days, and a car at highway speed would need around 160 days of non-stop driving. Nine crewed missions have made the trip — Apollo 8 and 10 through 17 — and twelve people have walked at the far end of it. Jules Verne, writing From the Earth to the Moon in 1865, launched his fictional crew from Florida — a few hours' drive from where the real ones left a century later.
How big is the Moon compared to Earth?
About 27% of Earth's width — drawn to scale below. Then try the toggle: the gap between them fits something remarkable.
Gravity: the Moon pulls at about 1/6th of Earth's — 60 kg here weighs the equivalent of 10 kg there.
Your weight on the Moon
Lunar surface gravity is 1.62 m/s² — 16.6% of Earth's.
Same mass, one-sixth the pull — which is why Apollo astronauts bounded like kangaroos in suits weighing more than they did.
How long does the Moon take to orbit Earth?
Two answers, both right. Measured against the stars, the Moon completes one orbit in 27.3 days — the sidereal month. But full moon to full moon takes 29.5 days — the synodic month — because while the Moon orbits, Earth has moved along its own path around the Sun, so the Moon needs two extra days to catch up to the same alignment. It's also why the Moon rises about 50 minutes later each night.
The Moon travels its orbit at roughly 3,700 km/h, faster near perigee and slower near apogee — a detail that matters more than it sounds, as the next section shows.
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Blood moons and blue moons — distance in disguise
A blood moon is the popular name for a total lunar eclipse: the full Moon passes through Earth's shadow, and the only sunlight that reaches it has been bent through our atmosphere — which strips out the blue and leaves the red. In effect, the Moon is lit by every sunrise and sunset on Earth at once. It's perfectly safe to watch, needs no equipment, and unlike a solar eclipse is visible from the entire night side of the planet.
Distance sneaks into the show twice. The Moon's distance sets its apparent size against Earth's shadow, and its orbital speed — slower at apogee — sets how long totality lasts: the longest blood moons are micromoon eclipses, with the Moon crawling through the shadow at its laziest. And the red itself is an atmosphere-quality report: after major volcanic eruptions, eclipses turn dark brick or nearly black.
A blue moon, despite the name, has nothing to do with colour — it's a calendar quirk, most commonly the second full moon in a single calendar month, which happens because the 29.5-day lunar cycle is slightly shorter than most months. One occurred on May 31, 2026.
August 28, 2026 — partial lunar eclipse
December 31, 2028 — the next total lunar eclipse, and it's also a blue moon: a blue blood moon on New Year's Eve
The Moon is leaving
"Is the Moon getting closer?" No — it's escaping, at about 3.8 centimetres a year, roughly the speed your fingernails grow. We know this with millimetre precision because Apollo 11, 14 and 15 left mirrors on the surface, and observatories have been bouncing laser pulses off them for over fifty years — the longest-running experiment in space science. The recession is powered by Earth's tides: the same gravitational tug-of-war is also slowing Earth's spin, lengthening our day by about 2 milliseconds per century.
We live in the lucky window
Here's the coincidence nobody ordered: the Sun is about 400 times wider than the Moon, and also about 400 times further away — so from Earth's surface, right now, they appear almost exactly the same size. That accident is the only reason total solar eclipses exist, with the Moon blotting out the Sun's disc precisely enough to reveal the corona.
Because the Moon is drifting outward at 3.8 cm a year, the match won't last. In roughly 600 million years the Moon will appear too small to fully cover the Sun, and the last total solar eclipse will happen. Every kilometre in this page's headline number is temporary — we just happen to be reading it during the show.
Frequently asked questions
Eight questions, 384,400 km
Sources
- NASA Moon fact sheet — average distance 384,400 km; perigee/apogee range; diameter 3,475 km; gravity 1.62 m/s².
- NASA — lunar laser ranging via Apollo retroreflectors; recession of 3.8 cm/year.
- NASA eclipse catalogue — total lunar eclipses of March 3, 2026 and December 31, 2028; partial eclipse of August 28, 2026.
- NASA Apollo program records — nine crewed lunar missions (Apollo 8, 10–17), ~3-day transit.
- Sidereal month 27.32 days vs synodic month 29.53 days — standard astronomical references.
- Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon (1865) — the Florida launch coincidence.
Related
384,400 kilometres — on average, for now, and leaving at fingernail speed.