How far away is the moon?
On average, 238,855 miles, or 384,400 kilometers. The orbit is an ellipse, so the true distance swings between about 225,700 miles at its closest (perigee, the supermoon distance) and 252,000 at its farthest. Apollo crews took about three days to make the trip; light does it in 1.3 seconds.
For scale: you could line up all seven other planets side by side in the Earth-moon gap, with room left over. Most classroom diagrams compress the distance wildly, which is why the real proportion surprises people.
We know the figure to millimeter precision because Apollo astronauts left retroreflector mirrors on the surface, and observatories still bounce lasers off them. Those measurements also confirmed the moon is spiraling away from Earth at about 1.5 inches, 3.8 centimeters, per year, slowly lengthening our days over geologic time.
About 238,900 miles on average, far enough to fit every other planet in the solar system in the gap. And it is drifting away from us about 1.5 inches a year.
- NASA lunar fact sheets
- Lunar Laser Ranging experiment data
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https://frequentlyaskedquestions.us/q/how-far-is-the-moon/Everybody Asks. (2026, July 28). How far away is the moon? https://frequentlyaskedquestions.us/q/how-far-is-the-moon/“How far away is the moon?” Everybody Asks, 28 July 2026, https://frequentlyaskedquestions.us/q/how-far-is-the-moon/.“How far away is the moon?” Everybody Asks. Last modified July 28, 2026. https://frequentlyaskedquestions.us/q/how-far-is-the-moon/.This page summarizes the primary sources listed above. For academic or encyclopedic work, cite those primary sources directly wherever possible.