How far is the Moon from Earth? Distance, closest points and travel time

The Moon is on average 384,400 km (238,855 miles) from Earth, NASA says. That is the distance between the centres of Earth and the Moon. Because the Moon's orbit is slightly oval, the real distance changes all the time, between about 356,000 and 407,000 km.

About 30 Earths would fit side by side in the average gap (Earth is 12,756 km wide at the equator, NASA says). Apollo astronauts took about three days to reach lunar orbit; light needs just over a second.

The Moon's distance from October 2026 to the end of 2027

At 00:00 UTC on 17 October 2026 the Moon is 404,631 km away, in our calculation with Astronomy Engine. It has just passed its farthest point of the month (apogee, 16 October, 404,632 km) and reaches its closest point (perigee) on 28 October, at 364,397 km. Each month the Moon swings between a perigee and an apogee, as our animation of November and December 2026 shows.

The closest and farthest points until the end of 2027 (UT, distance between the centres of Earth and the Moon):

Our Tonight page shows when the Moon rises and sets where you are.

Why does the Moon's distance change?

The Moon's orbit is not a perfect circle but a slightly stretched one, with Earth a little off-centre. So about once a month the Moon passes its closest point, perigee, and its farthest point, apogee. The shape and direction of the orbit also shift slowly, so the perigee and apogee distances differ from month to month.

From 1940 to 2050, the closest perigee in our calculation is on 25 November 2034 (356,436 km) and the farthest apogee was on 2 March 1984 (406,701 km). When a full moon falls near perigee, it is called a supermoon: see our supermoon guide and full moon calendar.

Is the Moon moving away? Yes, very slowly. NASA says the Moon is "getting about an inch farther away each year". At that rate its average distance would grow by about 100 inches, roughly 2.5 metres, in 100 years: far too little to notice by looking at the Moon.

How long does it take to get to the Moon?

About three days for astronauts to reach lunar orbit. NASA says the fastest Apollo flight, Apollo 8, took "just under three days to go from Earth orbit to orbit around the Moon". Apollo 11 launched on 16 July 1969, and NASA places its arrival in lunar orbit on 19 July, at "75 hours, 50 minutes into the flight": just over three days. The landing followed on 20 July, about 102 hours 45 minutes after launch. Slower routes that save fuel "can take more time, potentially weeks or months", according to NASA.

The car, airliner and walking rows assume nonstop travel at a constant speed across the average 384,400 km.

Why does it take days? A spacecraft leaves Earth very fast and then slows down as Earth's gravity pulls on it. In NASA's navigation data for Artemis II, Orion moved at about 10.1 km/s just after its engine burn toward the Moon, about 1.5 km/s one day later, and only about 0.4 km/s (relative to Earth) as it passed the Moon.

Artemis II's real path to the Moon and back

In April 2026 NASA's Artemis II flew four astronauts around the Moon (see our Artemis article). We used NASA's navigation data from JPL Horizons to draw its real path. Orion first spent a day in a high orbit around Earth. After its main engine burn toward the Moon on 2 April (ending at 23:54 UT, NASA's event list in Horizons), it reached the Moon about 95 hours later.

NASA's event list in Horizons gives these moments (distances between centres):

NASA's record distance was 252,756 miles (406,771 km). Subtracting Earth's average radius (6,371 km) from the Horizons value gives about 406,775 km, within about 4 km of NASA's number. The Moon itself was 404,881 km away during the flyby, near its farthest point of that month (apogee on 7 April).

How do we know the distance to the Moon so precisely?

With lasers. Apollo 11 left a reflector on the Moon in 1969 that is "designed to reflect pulses of laser light", NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory writes. Scientists fire a laser at it and time "the round-trip travel time of a laser pulse from the Earth to the Moon and back again". Apollo 14 and 15 left two more reflectors, and a French-built one rode on the Soviet Lunokhod 2 rover, JPL notes. In 2004, JPL called the measurements "accurate to about 2 centimeters".

Light travels at 299,792.458 km per second, so across the average centre-to-centre distance a pulse needs about 1.28 seconds each way, or 2.56 seconds for the round trip, in our calculation. A real pulse travels from a telescope on Earth's surface to a reflector on the Moon's surface, a little less far. The animation below shows the trip in real time.

Moon distance FAQ

How far is the Moon from Earth in miles? On average 238,855 miles (384,400 km), NASA says. In 2026 and 2027 it ranges from about 221,606 to 252,648 miles.

What is the distance to the Moon and back? Twice the average distance is 768,800 km, or about 477,710 miles. An actual spacecraft follows a curved route.

How long does it take to get to the Moon by car? You can't drive to the Moon, but at a steady 60 mph it would take about 166 days without stopping, in our calculation.

How long did it take to get to the Moon in 1969? Apollo 11 launched on 16 July 1969 and entered lunar orbit about 75 hours and 50 minutes later, on 19 July. The landing followed on 20 July, about 102 hours 45 minutes after launch, NASA says.

How long did Artemis II take to get to the Moon? About five days from launch (1 April 2026) to the closest approach on 6 April at 23:01 UTC, including a day in Earth orbit first. From the end of its engine burn toward the Moon it took about four days, according to NASA's event list in Horizons.

How far away will the Moon be in 100 years? At NASA's approximate rate of "about an inch" a year, the Moon's average distance would grow by roughly 2.5 metres (100 inches) in 100 years. Its distance on a given date still depends on where it is in its orbit: the monthly swing between perigee and apogee, around 50,000 km, is far bigger.

Can a telescope see the American flag on the Moon? No. Even the Hubble Space Telescope (2.4 m mirror) can only make out details about 107 m across at the Moon's distance, by our calculation with the standard formula for a telescope's sharpest detail in visible light. Resolving detail one metre across would need an ideal mirror about 258 m wide at this distance. Spacecraft orbiting the Moon get much closer: NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographed the Apollo landing hardware and the astronauts' tracks, like Apollo 11's site in the image above, and in 2011 took what NASA called "the sharpest images ever taken from space" of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 sites.

How far is the Moon in light seconds? About 1.28 light seconds on average, from about 1.19 at the closest to 1.36 at the farthest. Mars is many light minutes away: see our Mars distance article. Sunlight needs about 8 minutes 19 seconds to reach us: see how far the Sun is from Earth.

How big is the Moon compared with the distance? The Moon has a radius of about 1,740 km, NASA says. The gap between Earth and the Moon is about 30 times Earth's width.

How we checked

The average distance, the Moon's radius and its slow drift away come from NASA's Moon facts (updated 12 February 2026); Earth's equatorial diameter from NASA's Earth facts. We calculated the distance at 00:00 UTC on 17 October 2026, every perigee and apogee from 1940 to 2050 and the one-month animation with Astronomy Engine 2.1.19, and the light times with the speed of light.

For Artemis II we used NASA JPL Horizons: Orion's (Artemis II, -1024) and the Moon's positions every 10 minutes from 2 to 10 April 2026, from NASA navigation data, plus the event list in Horizons. Horizons gives times in TDB, about 69 seconds ahead of UTC; the animation clock shows UTC. Earth's average radius (6,371 km) and the Moon's radius (1,737.4 km) used for the Artemis II altitudes come from Horizons' physical data. The Apollo times come from NASA's Apollo 11 overview and NASA's "We asked a NASA expert" video; the laser facts from JPL (2004); the telescope limit is our calculation (1.22 × wavelength ÷ mirror diameter, with green light of 550 nanometres).

The photos are NASA images; NASA says its images are generally not subject to copyright in the United States, and we credit each one. The animations, charts and diagrams are our own, made from these numbers. None of the images or videos is AI-generated.