Hey Ray! It's All About Perspective With The Sun And Moon

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The two most noticeable things in our sky are the Sun and The Moon. On days and nights that aren't cloudy, that is. When you notice the Sun or Moon in the sky, they look about the same size. We all know that the Sun is much bigger than our Moon, so this is all about perspective. The numbers that line up to give this perspective are kind of cool, though.

We know the Moon is smaller than our planet. We also know the Sun is huge. According to NASA, 1.3 Million Earths could fit inside of it. That is the volume of the Sun, which is massive. Here we are going to talk about the disk or face of the Sun and Moon.

The Sun has a radius of 435,000 miles, while the Moon has a radius of 1080 miles. That is quite a sizeable difference. This means the Sun's disk is more than 402 times bigger than the Moon's.

Remember, we are just talking about the circle we see in the sky, not the volume here.

Now, the Moon is 240,000 miles away from Earth, but the Sun is 93 Million miles away! That means the Sun is 387 times further away than the Moon. When you consider the Sun about 400 times bigger, but also about 400 times farther away than the Moon, you can see why they appear to be the same size in our sky.

Just like my cookie and Elizabeth's cookie are different sizes, but look to be similarly sized when mine is closer.