Delbert Giffin, aged 11, of Colville, Washington for his question:

How far around is the moon?

The moon and the sun look about the same size to us. In fact,

there are times when they fit together like two pennies. This is when the moon passes between us and the sun in a total eclipse. For a few minutes the dark disc of the moon exactly covers the bright face of the sun. So we might suppose that the sun and the moon are exactly the same sire.

Then we remember that the sun is much further away from us than the moon. Actually it is about 400 times further away from us. On an average the moon is 239,000 miles from the earth, On an average, the sun is 93,005,000 miles away from the earth. Like everything else, the size of the sun seems to shrink with distance.

Now let's take the waist measurements of these three heavenly bodies. The earth is about 24, 000 miles around its equator. It is about four times further around than the little moon. The waistline of the moon is about 600 miles. The giant sun is 2,720,625 miles around the middles The sun has a waistline about 400 times longer than that of the dainty little moon: