Shirley Gillotson, aged 10 of Weiser, Idaho for her question:

How big is the moon?

The pale golden moon looks about as big as a cantaloupe. But remember it is a long, long way away; it is about 240,000 miles above the top of your head. That makes it look a lot smaller than it actually is.

Let's compare the size of the moon to the size of the earth, The diameter of the earth is somewhat less than 8000 miles. That means that a spike driven right through the middle of the earth would have to be 8000 miles long to come out the other side. The diameter of the moon is dust over 2,000. About four moons would fit on the long spike we used to go through the diameter of the earth.

The moon is made of much lighter material than the earth. It would take 91 moons to weigh as much as one earth. The moon's gravity is far, far less than the earths s. Sixteen pounds of anything on earth weigh only one pound on the moon.

In the sky, the moon looks just about as big as the sun. But the sun is some 400 times further away from us then the moon. Actually, the sun is millions and millions of times larger than the moon.