A Look at the Moon July 20 1969 is an important date for the human race It was on this day that a human being first walked on the surface of the moon The Apollo 11 mission that put men on the moon is one of the most extraordinary achievements of the human race STEM Fast Fact Neil Armstrong Neil Armstrong was an American astronaut and the first person to walk on the moon Six hundred million people watched the first moon walk on TV His footprints can still be seen on the moon today The dust is thick but there isn’t any wind to remove them He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom which is the highest honor a civilian can earn from the U S government Neil Alden Armstrong 1930 2012 6
For years people watched the moon in the sky and wondered what it was really like But through careful study the astronauts who went to the moon had a good idea of what to expect Planet Earth revolves around a much larger body the Sun The same pattern follows with the Earth and the moon Because it is always in motion the moon is never precisely the same distance from the Earth When it is closest the moon is about 227,000 miles 365,321 09 kilometers from the Earth When it is farthest away the moon is about 254,000 miles 408,773 38 kilometers from the Earth Sun Earth Earth’s Orbit Moon Moon's Orbit 7
Using those figures you can calculate the average distance from the Earth to the moon An average is a number that represents a group of numbers Calculating the average shows you how far the moon typically is from the Earth 8 The moon actually has several looks or phases
STEM in Action Perhaps your parents give you an allowance for the different chores you do each week Even though you get a different amount each week you can calculate your average weekly allowance Let’s say that your allowance for three weeks is Week 1 12 50 Week 2 13 85 Week 3 11 20 Based on those numbers what would your average weekly allowance be You can find out in two steps First add all the different amounts together 12 50 13 85 11 20 37 55 The next step is to divide the result by the number of addends The addends are the numbers you added together In this case there were three addends 12 50 13 85 and 11 20 37 55 3 12 51 So now you can say that your average allowance for each of those three weeks is 12 51 Now try the same thing with the distance from the Earth to the moon 227,000 254,000 481,000 481,000 2 240,500 The average distance between the Earth and the moon is 240,500 miles The metric system can be applied to space and space travel in an infinite number of ways For instance you learned that the average distance from the Earth to the moon is about 240,500 miles In the metric system that distance would be measured in terms of kilometers Converting miles to kilometers is easy All you have to do is multiply the number of miles by 1 6 So how many kilometers are there between the Earth and the moon 240,500 x 1 6 384,800 The moon is roughly 385,000 kilometers from the Earth 9
