What is the distance in miles between the earth and moon?
Many sources, such as beginning astronomy textbooks, yearbooks, and atlases, give the distance to the moon as 384,400 kilometers (km), and 0.055 as the flattening or eccentricity of the moon’s elliptical orbit around the Earth. The moon travels around Earth in an elliptical orbit, with the Earth at one of the two focuses (foci) of the ellipse. As a result the distance to the moon varies by quite large amounts. Its close (or perigee) distance is 384,400 x (1- 0.055) = 363,258 km. Its far (or apogee) distance is 384,400 x (1+0.055) = 405,542 km. BUT these values turn out to be the mean or average values. See the table below for actual distances. The actual (computed) distances over 10 centuries, from 1500 to 2500, have been calculated by the Belgian astronomer, Jean Meeus, to be as small as 356,371 km or as large as 406,720 km./1 These values differ from the MEAN values by 6,887 km and 1,178 km respectively An excellent and easy-to-us
