How far is the moon from earth miles

What is a light year?

The Moon's elliptical orbit

No orbit is perfectly circular. Some are very close, but they are all at least slightly elliptical in shape.

Astronomers can measure how near to a perfect circle an orbit is by calculating its 'eccentricity'.

This is expressed by a number that is between 0 and 1. The closer the eccentricity is to 0, the closer the orbit is to a circle.

In fact, a circle can be thought of as a special kind of ellipse that has an eccentricity of 0.

Venus’ orbit is the least eccentric out of all of the planets in our Solar System and closest to a circle, with a value of 0.007.

Distance from earth to moon in 'm

Mercury’s is the most eccentric with a value of 0.2.

The eccentricity of the Moon’s orbit is 0.05. Furthermore, the Earth is not at the very centre of the Moon’s orbit either. It is located at one of the foci of the Moon’s elliptical orbit, so is closer to one edge of the orbit than the other.

Apogee, perigee and average distance - the distance to the Moon explained

Astronomers tend to talk about three different numbers when talking about the distance between the Earth

how many miles away is the moon

how far from earth is moon