Distance to the moon

[djprescott]

How many miles is it to the moon?

[auldyin]

the moon is 1.3 light seconds from earth. converted to miles =241800 miles

[bernardo]

238,900 miles

[Hippy]

As the Earth is an oblate spheroid (fatter in the middle), the moon's orbit is not precisely circular and concentric with the Earth, and the moon wobbles in its orbit around the Earth there is no fixed distance.

 

See http://stardate.org/resources/ssguide/moon.html and

http://www.freemars.org/jeff/planets/Luna/Luna.htm

for some more information. Bernardo's figure is the average distance, however, the distance varies by about 17%.

 

[Hippy]

Oops! That 17% should be 11%. Where's that edit facility, ABed?