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One thing that I have never been able to correctly imagine in my mind are the proportions of the moon's size and orbit distance relative to earth. This is usually depicted in introductory science books. However the BIG flaw in all of the drawings I've seen is the moon is shown orbiting at a very close distance to the earth. I assume this is typically done because the actual average distance between them (close to 30 earth diameters) is so great, any illustration shown to correct scale would need the earth and moon to be quite small. But that has never helped me to get a good grasp on this. So I came up with my own example.

This links to a Full HD (1920x1080) scale illustration depicting the relative sizes of and distance between the earth and the moon. When the picture is displayed edge to edge on a Full HD screen of any diagonal size, the scale will still be correct. At Full HD resolution, each pixel represents approximately 130 miles. This works because I have fixed the screen width to be equal to a constant scale size of 250,000 miles and calculated all of the other sizes from there.

This picture can also be displayed on screens with resolutions other than Full HD. The relative sizes of the earth to the moon and the distance between them will still be accurate. However each pixel will no longer represent 130 miles. That number will be larger for any screen with less than Full HD resolution.
If you calculate:
250,000 miles ÷ your screen's horizontal pixel count
you will get the approximate number of miles each pixel represents on your screen.

Feel free to download and use my illustration as you wish so long as you do not modify it in any way; including but not limited to removing my copyright notice or website. You might not want to directly link to my illustration, because I could move it at some point in the future. If you wish to contact me I can be reached via the webmaster e-mail link at the very bottom of this page.

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