The moon is the brightest object in our night sky. It seems quite large, but only because it is the closest celestial body. The Moon is a little more than one-fourth the size of the Earth (27%), which is much smaller than the size ratios of other satellites to their planets.
How big is the Moon compared to Earth?
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Our moon is the fifth largest satellite in the solar system. The Moon has an average radius of 1,737.5 km and a diameter of 3,475 km, less than one-third the diameter of the Earth. The equatorial circumference is 10,917 km. The area is about 38 million square kilometers, which is smaller than the total area of the Asian continent of 44.5 million square kilometers.
“If you imagine that the Earth is the size of a coin, then the Moon can be compared to a coffee bean,” the researchers say.
Mass, density, and gravity
The mass of the Moon is 7.35 × 10^22 kg, about 1.2% of the mass of the Earth. In other words, the Earth weighs 81 times more than the Moon. The density of the Moon is 3.34 g/cm3. It is about 60% of the density of the Earth. The Moon is the second densest satellite in the solar system after the Jupiterian Io, whose similar parameter is 3.53 g/cm3.
The Moon’s gravitational force is only 16.6% of the Earth’s. A man who weighs 45 kg on Earth will weigh only 7.5 kg on the Moon. A person who can jump 3 meters on Earth will be able to jump almost 18 meters on the Moon.
As on most worlds in the solar system, the Moon’s gravity varies depending on its surface characteristics. In 2012, NASA’s GRAIL mission mapped lunar gravity in unprecedented detail.
“When we see a marked change in the gravitational field, we can synchronize that change with surface topography features, such as craters or mountains,” said mission collaborator Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a statement.
Although we can observe the Moon in the night sky (and sometimes in daylight), it is difficult to put its size and distance from Earth into perspective.
In this article we answered the questions “How big is the moon?” “And how big is the moon relative to the size of the earth?”
This article tries to answer the question with the help of text, images, and video. At our site, you will find answers to all the important questions concerning the solar system.
