1.2 Distance to the Moon Brief Description Use a to-scale model of the Earth and Moon. Learn to understand the relative distances between them. Keywords Moon • Earth • Distance • Materials Globe (Box) • Moon sphere (Box) • Folding rule • Learning Objectives about the relative distances of the Earth-Moon system. The Moon and the Earth circle around each other at an average distance of 384,400 kilometres. In many artist’s impressions, this length is pictured as much too small in relation to the sizes of both bodies. In reality, there is a lot of space between them: about 30 times the size of the Earth. Credit: ESA / DLR / Freie Universität Berlin Picture of the system, taken by the Mars Express in 2003 Full description Ask the children to compare the Moon and the Earth: How large is the Moon relative to Earth, and how distant are they from each other? Let them use a globe and a model of the Moon. We use a scale of 1:100,000,000 where a distance of 1 cm corresponds to a real distance of 1,000 km. The Moon is 384,400 km away from Earth, which corresponds in our model to a distance of 384.4 cm = 3.84 m. That seems surprisingly far apart! The reason for this is that the Moon is depicted as
1.2 Distance to the Moon Brief Description Use a to-scale model of the Earth and Moon. Learn to understand the relative distances between them. Keywords • Moon • Earth • Distance Materials • Globe (Box) • Moon sphere (Box) • Folding rule Learning Objectives about the relative distances of the Earth-Moon system. The Moon and the Earth circle around each other at an average distance of 384,400 kilometres. In many artist’s impressions, this length is pictured as much too small in relation to the sizes of both bodies. In reality, there is a lot of space between them: about 30 times the size of the Earth. Credit: ESA / DLR / Freie Universität Berlin Picture of the system, taken by the Mars Express in 2003 Full description Ask the children to compare the Moon and the Earth: How large is the Moon relative to Earth, and how distant are they from each other? Let them use a globe and a model of the Moon. We use a scale of 1:100,000,000 where a distance of 1 cm corresponds to a real distance of 1,000 km. The Moon is 384,400 km away from Earth, which corresponds in our model to a distance of 384.4 cm = 3.84 m. That seems surprisingly far apart! The reason for this is that the Moon is depicted as
Universe_in_Box_activitybook.docx