Carol Ann Berrs, age, 10, of Visalia, California, for her question:

How far is the moon from the sun?

The moon and the earth swoop merrily around the sun like a couple of country square dancers. The swinging. partners are linked by strong, invisible arms of gravity. But because the earth has a stronger grip, it swings the moon in a wide orbit around itself. The swinging partners are sometimes a trifle nearer or closer to each other. The average distance between them is 238,840 miles, which equals almost 10 trips around the wide waist of the world. When the moon swings between us and the sun, it is about 238,840 miles nearer than we are to the sun.

The many variations in the heavenly hoedown can be evened out in average figures. The earth's average distance from the sun is about 93 million miles. Compared with this immense span, the earth moon distances are very small snips. When all this shifting mileage is evened out to an average figure, both the moon and the earth are about 93 million miles from the sun. This staggering space trek is almost 400 times longer than the average dance between the earth and the moon.