Moon and Earth to Scale
The diameter of the Moon is 3480 km or 27% of the Earth's equatorial diameter of 12,756 km. The mass of the moon is 1.23% of the mass of the Earth, or about 1/80th. The density of the Moon is 3.34 g/cm3 compared to 5.52 g/cm3 for the Earth, so its overall composition is quite different, apparently lacking a large iron core.
The Moon's average distance from the Earth is 384,000 km which amounts to 30.1 Earth diameters.
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The Sun's diameter of 1,392,000 km is 109 times the Earth's equatorial diameter of 12,756 km. The distance to the Earth from the sun at 149,000,000 km = 1 AU is 107 times the diameter of the Sun and 388 times the Earth-Moon distance. The Earth-Moon distance is not shown to scale in the above composite. The diameter of the Sun is 3.6 times the Earth-Moon distance. Above, the Earth and Moon are scaled relative to an image of the Sun made by the SOHO satellite on January 12, 2007. |
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Index
Moon Concepts
Solar System Concepts
Solar System Exploration |