{"id":89896,"date":"2025-08-23T11:42:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T11:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/89896\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T11:42:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T11:42:10","slug":"you-could-fit-every-planet-in-the-solar-system-between-earth-and-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/89896\/","title":{"rendered":"You could fit every planet in the Solar System between Earth and the Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Look up at the next full Moon and consider how far away it is. It looks pretty big and nearby, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n

Now consider this: you could fit every planet in the Solar System<\/a> between Earth and the Moon.<\/p>\n

\"ImageCredit: NASA, ESA, STScI, Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC)<\/p>\n

That even includes Jupiter and Saturn.<\/p>\n

The Moon is so far from Earth that Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune could all fit in the distance between us and our natural satellite.<\/p>\n

Oh, and Earth itself could squeeze in there too.<\/p>\n

\"JupiterJupiter and Saturn are enormous, but you could still fit them \u2013 and the other planets \u2013 between Earth and the Moon. Credit: Mark Garlick\/Science Photo Library\/Getty Images
\nDistance to the Moon<\/p>\n

The Moon is an average distance of of 384,400km (238,855 miles) from Earth.<\/p>\n

We say ‘average’ because the Moon’s orbit around Earth isn’t a perfect circle, so sometimes it’s closer to Earth than at other times.<\/p>\n

When the Moon is closest to Earth, it’s known as perigee. When the Moon is farthest from Earth, it’s called apogee.<\/p>\n

And that average distance of 384,400km (238,855 miles) is about the same as the width of 30 Earths, meaning you could fit 30 Earths between Earth and the Moon.<\/p>\n

\"ComparisonComparison between the perigee (closest) and apogee (farthest) Moons. Credit: Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n

We can prove that all the planets of the Solar System would fit between Earth and the Moon by adding up each of the planets’ diameters.<\/p>\n

Mercury: 4,880km<\/p>\n

Venus: 12,104km<\/p>\n

Earth: 12,756km<\/p>\n

Mars: 6,780km<\/p>\n

Jupiter: 139,820km<\/p>\n

Saturn: 120,536km<\/p>\n

Uranus: 51,118km<\/p>\n

Neptune: 49,528km<\/p>\n

If you add those up, you get 397,522km.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just a bit more than the average Earth\u2013Moon distance, but at its furthest, the Moon can reach up to 407,000km from Earth.<\/p>\n

At that distance, all the planets of the Solar System fit comfortably between Earth and the Moon.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Moon appears bigger to the naked eye when it’s closer to the horizon. This is known as the Moon illusion. Credit:
Manuel Breva Colmeiro \/ Getty Images
\nWhy it seems weird<\/p>\n

The Moon is the biggest, brightest thing in the night sky, and looks remarkably close compared to other objects we can see like stars and planets.<\/p>\n

In fact, the Moon is so big and bright that we can even see its craters and lunar seas with the naked eye.<\/p>\n

And, when the Moon is close to the horizon it looks absolutely enormous. This is a well-known optical effect called the Moon illusion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is why it seems strange. Even Jupiter alone is so enormous, it seems unfathomable that Jupiter and all the other planets could fit between Earth and our apparently nearby natural satellite.<\/p>\n

But often our eyes and our brain play tricks on us.<\/p>\n

When it comes down to the mathematics behind this thought experiment, the facts speak for themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Look up at the next full Moon and consider how far away it is. It looks pretty big…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-89896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}