The moon's orbit is not a perfect circle, it's more like an ellipse, which means the distance between the earth and the moon varies throughout the month. At its closest point, the moon is about 225,622 miles (363,104 kilometers) away, and at its farthest point, it's about 252,088 miles (405,696 kilometers) away. That's a difference of over 26,000 miles!
Now, let's talk about feet - because who doesn't love a good unit conversion? There are 5,280 feet in a mile, so if we do the math, the average distance from the earth to the moon is about 1.257 billion feet. That's a lot of feet - imagine standing on the earth and stretching your arms out to the moon, it's just not going to happen!
The moon is slowly moving away from the earth at a rate of about 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) per year. That's because the moon's orbit is slowly increasing in size due to the tidal interactions between the earth and the moon. So, in about 600 million years, the moon will be about 1,000 feet farther away from us than it is today.
