Look up at the next full Moon and consider how far away it is. It looks pretty big and nearby, doesn't it?
Now consider this: you could fit every planet in the Solar System between Earth and the Moon.
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That even includes Jupiter and Saturn.
The Moon is so far from Earth that Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune could all fit in the distance between us and our natural satellite.
Oh, and Earth itself could squeeze in there too.
Distance to the Moon
The Moon is an average distance of of 384,400km (238,855 miles) from Earth.
We say 'average' because the Moon's orbit around Earth isn't a perfect circle, so sometimes it's closer to Earth than at other times.
When the Moon is closest to Earth, it's known as perigee. When the Moon is farthest from Earth, it's called apogee.
And that average distance of 384,400km (238,855 miles) is about the same as the width of 30 Earths, meaning you could fit 30 Earths between Earth and the Moon.
We can prove that all the planets of the Solar System would fit between Earth and the Moon by adding up each of the planets' diameters.
Mercury: 4,880km
Venus: 12,104km
Earth: 12,756km
Mars: 6,780km
Jupiter: 139,820km
Saturn: 120,536km
Uranus: 51,118km
Neptune: 49,528km
If you add those up, you get 397,522km.
That’s just a bit more than the average Earth–Moon distance, but at its furthest, the Moon can reach up to 407,000km from Earth.
At that distance, all the planets of the Solar System fit comfortably between Earth and the Moon.
Manuel Breva Colmeiro / Getty Images
Why it seems weird
The Moon is the biggest, brightest thing in the night sky, and looks remarkably close compared to other objects we can see like stars and planets.
In fact, the Moon is so big and bright that we can even see its craters and lunar seas with the naked eye.
And, when the Moon is close to the horizon it looks absolutely enormous. This is a well-known optical effect called the Moon illusion.
This is why it seems strange. Even Jupiter alone is so enormous, it seems unfathomable that Jupiter and all the other planets could fit between Earth and our apparently nearby natural satellite.
But often our eyes and our brain play tricks on us.
When it comes down to the mathematics behind this thought experiment, the facts speak for themselves.
