Michelle Paolercio, age 14, of Staten Island, New York, for her question:

Is the moon bigger than North America?

North America is a fairly flat plane and the moon is a sphere Comparing planes and spheres is somewhat tricky, but it can be done. The moon's diameter is 2,160 miles. North America stretches 4,500 miles long and 4,000 miles wide. Let's visualize the round moon sitting on top of the flat continent. Its widest parts would cover the scenery from northern Alaska to as far south as Denver    and from San Francisco almost as far east as Cleveland.

However, this does not compare the two surfaces. The surface area of the flat continent is 9,416,000 square miles. The surface area of the spherical moon is about 14,650,000 square miles. Suppose we could peel off the entire lunar landscape and mold the sphere into a flat layer. There would be enough of it to pave all of North America, plus a second layer for Alaska, Canada and a strip south of the Canadian border.