How Far Away is the Moon? (The Scale of the Universe)

If the Earth were the size of a basketball and the moon a tennis ball, how far apart would they be? Diagrams that are not to scale make us think that they're closer than they really are.

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  Education

[TandC32412]

htwins.net/scale2/ FTW!!!

[Willoughby Krenzteinburg]

Absolutely. This is why I used the phrase "up to 4,000" and not "always 4,000". It's just the fact that we can see stars "up to" 4,000 light years away with the naked eye, so we can see "up to" 4,000 years into the past. In fact, we can see the Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye (if you are in a very rural area with no light pollution), and it is 2.5 MILLION light years away, but I thought I would limit my response to just the stars we can see.

[Freeo4th]

And we haven't even started to talk about the observable universe ;)

[Freeo4th]

I love your videos Derek, but to first say some information is missleading then round the numbers of the distance to the moon and sun is somewhat wrong.

The distance from the Earth to the moon for light is 1,26 seconds (not 1) That might seam trivial, but it is a difference of 77946.04 Km. That is alot. And to the sun it is 8 minutes and 20 seconds (on average). That is a difference of 5,995,849.16 Km .... It makes a huge difference. Sorry to complain. Love your channel!

[Freeo4th]

I missed a "k" it is 290,792 km/s

[Freeo4th]

It is only coincidence. The moons orbital distance varies between 356,700 km to 406,300 km depending on where in it's orbit it is. By mear coincidence, the distance to the moon (about 30 Earth diameters) is the exakt size ration as the sun based on it's distance from us. Remember it takes the light 1,26 seconds to reach the moon from us. To the sun it is 8 minutes and 20 seconds. That is almost 397 times the distance. And light travels 290.792 m/s (in Vacuum)

[Willoughby Krenzteinburg]

Coincidence. I wouldn't say luck. We don't really benefit from the fact that the sun and moon are the same relative size.

[Chuck Dynamo]

me and my friends were arguing about this but i was right SUCK IT GUYS!!! HAHA

[Keni Angervo]

I got an amazing idea from these vids of yours: you should prank people scientifically and let us see the reactions. This vid already is kinda close to that, tho only one reaction.

[x2eXu50x]

I would have liked to see the rest of the peoples reactions when you showed them how far it actually is.

[Bunkloo Bolt]

i would like to know why the moon covers the sun so precisely during an eclipse, can't be just luck right?