How Far is the Moon from Earth? | space

SPACE — The moon is the brightest object in our night sky, as if it were so close to us. However, many of us still don’t know how far the moon is from where we look at it.

It is common knowledge that the distance of the moon from Earth affects the strength of the sea tides and the appearance of solar eclipses in our sky. This relates to the gravitational force of the moon and the position of the moon and sun which are in a line parallel to the Earth.

According to NASA, the average distance between the blue planet and its only natural satellite is about 238,855 miles or 384,400 kilometers. The problem is that the moon doesn’t orbit Earth in a perfect circle, so there are places along its journey that are either closer or farther from our planet than the average distance.

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Perigee dan Apogee

The shortest distance between the moon and Earth is called Perigee. When the moon makes its shortest approach to Earth, it will be about 226,000 miles or 363,300 km.

If perigee coincides with the full moon phase, it is generally called a supermoon. This term is not a scientific term, but is used by the sky-watching community when the full moon appears within 90 percent of perigee.

The supermoon appears roughly 17 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than the dimmest moon phase of the year. Because the moon’s gravity exerts a pull on Earth’s oceans to produce tides, the moon’s closer proximity to Earth around perigee can also trigger higher-than-usual tides.

Meanwhile, the farthest distance between the moon and Earth is called Apogee. When the moon is in the apogee phase, it is about 251,000 miles or 405,500 km from our planet. One of the most obvious natural visuals for apogee is ring of fire solar eclipse.

The quality of a perfect solar eclipse is always related to where it is at that moment. Over the next 600 million years, the moon’s proximity to Earth will be about 400 times greater than the sun’s distance to Earth. Since the Sun’s diameter is also roughly 400 times larger than that of the Moon’s, the disks of the two objects tend to be nearly perfectly aligned during a solar eclipse. This results in a moment of totality when only the sun’s corona peeks out from behind the moon.

However, if the phase of the moon that produces a solar eclipse coincides with apogee, the moon’s greater distance from Earth makes the lunar disk appear much smaller in the sky. While still spectacular, the moon doesn’t completely block the sun, leaving a ring of the solar disk visible to Earthlings. Read: Indonesia will face 90 solar eclipses.

The moon continues

The moon used to be closer to Earth. During the formation of the solar system, Earth, which was still a protoplanet (a half-finished planet), collided with a hypothetical Mars-sized object called Theia. The material that was blown away from the colossal impact eventually coalesced and formed our moon.

Since then, the moon has slowly drifted away from Earth. The distance between the Earth and the moon increases with time. Currently, the moon is moving away from our planet at a rate of approximately 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) per year. Source: Space.com

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