Get the latest tech news

Why Is It So Tricky to Show the Sun, Earth, and Moon in a Diagram?

In a nutshell, you can get the distances or the sizes right, but not both. Space is hard!

Here, position is measured in astronomical units (AU), which was originally defined as the average distance from the sun to Earth. That's sort of hard to picture in your head, and the bad news is that we can't draw an accurate diagram as an aid to understanding. The whole problem is that, on the scale of the solar system, the Earth and moon are so close together that you can't see their relative motion.

Get the Android app