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The instantaneous Earth–Moon distance, or distance to the Moon, is the distance from the center of Earth to the center of the Moon. In contrast, the Lunar distance ( LD or Δ ⊕ L {\textstyle \Delta _{\oplus L}} ), or Earth–Moon characteristic distance , is a unit of measure in astronomy .
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It orbits at an average distance of 384,400 km (238,900 mi), about 30 times the diameter of Earth. Tidal forces between Earth and the Moon have synchronized the Moon's orbital period (lunar month) with its rotation period at 29.5 Earth days, causing the same side of the Moon to always face Earth.
The Sun's gravitational effect on the Moon is more than twice that of Earth's on the Moon; consequently, the Moon's trajectory is always convex [25] [26] (as seen when looking Sunward at the entire Sun–Earth–Moon system from a great distance outside Earth–Moon solar orbit), and is nowhere concave (from the same perspective) or looped.
NASA's Orion spacecraft has shared a dramatic photo of the Earth and the Moon in a single shot. ... Ars Technica notes that this early Artemis flight has so far surpassed NASA's expectations ...
The object orbits the Sun but makes slow close approaches to the Earth–Moon system. Between 29 September (19:54 UTC) and 25 November 2024 (16:43 UTC) (a period of 1 month and 27 days) [4] it passed just outside Earth's Hill sphere (roughly 0.01 AU [1.5 million km; 0.93 million mi]) at a low relative velocity (in the range 0.002 km/s (4.5 mph) – 0.439 km/s [980 mph]) and will become ...
Soon after that the first Moon landing and the first landing on any extraterrestrial body was performed by Luna 2, [1] which intentionally impacted the Moon on 14 September 1959. The far side of the Moon, which is always facing away from Earth due to tidal locking, was seen for the first time by Luna 3 in (7 October 1959).
Supermoons are full moons that appear larger because they happen roughly in tandem with the lunar orbit’s closest approach to Earth. That can mean the moon appears 30% brighter and 14% larger ...
What is 2024 PT5, which will orbit Earth like a second moon? The asteroid 2024 PT5 was discovered by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) on Aug. 7, per USA TODAY.