How far is the Moon today?
·Tonight, September 4, 2026, figure for 02:00 UTC September 5, 2026, center of Earth to center of Moon, rounded to 10 km. Rewritten every morning.
The Moon is about 369,380 km from Earth tonight, closing by about 1,440 km a day. Moonlight takes 1.23 seconds to reach us at that distance. The next perigee (closest point) is Sunday, September 6, 2026, 20:44 UTC at 368,250 km, 2 days away. The next apogee (farthest point) is Saturday, September 19, 2026, 03:00 UTC at 404,210 km, 14 days away.
The Moon's distance from Earth is not one number. Its orbit is an ellipse, so over each month it swings from about 356,000 to about 407,000 km, a difference of roughly 50,000 km. The figure above is tonight's, computed for 02:00 UTC from center of Earth to center of Moon and rewritten every morning. Below it are the next perigee and apogee, then every perigee and apogee for this year and next.
See tonight's moon on the dashboard
What is the average distance to the Moon?
384,400 km, or about 238,900 miles. That is the mean over the whole orbit, and the Moon is almost never exactly there. Light and radio signals cover the distance in about 1.28 seconds, which is why conversations with the Apollo crews had a noticeable pause. If you stand with the Moon straight overhead you are about 6,400 km closer than the center-to-center figure, since you are on the near side of Earth's radius.
What are perigee and apogee?
Perigee is the point in each orbit where the Moon is closest to Earth, apogee the point where it is farthest. The gap between one perigee and the next is 27.55 days on average, the anomalistic month, which is a little longer than the 27.32-day sidereal orbit because the ellipse itself slowly rotates. The perigee distance varies from one month to the next, roughly 356,400 to 370,400 km, because the Sun's pull stretches the orbit differently depending on where the Moon is relative to the Sun. Apogee moves less, about 404,000 to 406,700 km.
When are the perigees and apogees this year and next?
| Event | Date and time (UTC) | Distance (km) |
|---|---|---|
| Perigee | Thu, Jan 1, 2026, 21:44 | 360,340 |
| Apogee | Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 20:47 | 405,430 |
| Perigee | Thu, Jan 29, 2026, 21:48 | 365,860 |
| Apogee | Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 16:53 | 404,570 |
| Perigee | Tue, Feb 24, 2026, 23:12 | 370,120 |
| Apogee | Tue, Mar 10, 2026, 13:44 | 404,370 |
| Perigee | Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 11:39 | 366,850 |
| Apogee | Tue, Apr 7, 2026, 08:32 | 404,960 |
| Perigee | Sun, Apr 19, 2026, 06:56 | 361,620 |
| Apogee | Mon, May 4, 2026, 22:32 | 405,830 |
| Perigee | Sun, May 17, 2026, 13:45 | 358,060 |
| Apogee | Mon, Jun 1, 2026, 04:31 | 406,360 |
| Perigee | Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 23:20 | 357,190 |
| Apogee | Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 07:11 | 406,260 |
| Perigee | Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 07:57 | 359,100 |
| Apogee | Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 16:45 | 405,540 |
| Perigee | Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 11:18 | 363,270 |
| Apogee | Sat, Aug 22, 2026, 08:21 | 404,630 |
| Perigee | Sun, Sep 6, 2026, 20:44 | 368,250 |
| Apogee | Sat, Sep 19, 2026, 03:00 | 404,210 |
| Perigee | Thu, Oct 1, 2026, 20:52 | 369,320 |
| Apogee | Fri, Oct 16, 2026, 22:54 | 404,630 |
| Perigee | Wed, Oct 28, 2026, 18:04 | 364,400 |
| Apogee | Fri, Nov 13, 2026, 17:51 | 405,610 |
| Perigee | Wed, Nov 25, 2026, 21:02 | 359,340 |
| Apogee | Fri, Dec 11, 2026, 06:44 | 406,410 |
| Perigee | Thu, Dec 24, 2026, 08:32 | 356,640 |
| Apogee | Thu, Jan 7, 2027, 08:09 | 406,600 |
| Perigee | Thu, Jan 21, 2027, 21:47 | 357,270 |
| Apogee | Wed, Feb 3, 2027, 13:31 | 406,180 |
| Perigee | Fri, Feb 19, 2027, 07:30 | 361,000 |
| Apogee | Wed, Mar 3, 2027, 05:40 | 405,210 |
| Perigee | Fri, Mar 19, 2027, 04:29 | 366,430 |
| Apogee | Wed, Mar 31, 2027, 01:34 | 404,320 |
| Perigee | Wed, Apr 14, 2027, 00:37 | 369,990 |
| Apogee | Tue, Apr 27, 2027, 21:21 | 404,160 |
| Perigee | Sun, May 9, 2027, 20:07 | 366,620 |
| Apogee | Tue, May 25, 2027, 15:14 | 404,790 |
| Perigee | Sun, Jun 6, 2027, 14:53 | 361,690 |
| Apogee | Tue, Jun 22, 2027, 05:07 | 405,690 |
| Perigee | Sun, Jul 4, 2027, 20:55 | 358,270 |
| Apogee | Mon, Jul 19, 2027, 11:52 | 406,200 |
| Perigee | Mon, Aug 2, 2027, 06:25 | 357,350 |
| Apogee | Sun, Aug 15, 2027, 14:24 | 406,070 |
| Perigee | Mon, Aug 30, 2027, 15:42 | 359,200 |
| Apogee | Sat, Sep 11, 2027, 23:36 | 405,370 |
| Perigee | Mon, Sep 27, 2027, 20:12 | 363,440 |
| Apogee | Sat, Oct 9, 2027, 15:46 | 404,520 |
| Perigee | Mon, Oct 25, 2027, 05:36 | 368,640 |
| Apogee | Sat, Nov 6, 2027, 11:36 | 404,170 |
| Perigee | Fri, Nov 19, 2027, 00:12 | 369,350 |
| Apogee | Sat, Dec 4, 2027, 08:41 | 404,650 |
| Perigee | Thu, Dec 16, 2027, 02:25 | 364,020 |
Grayed rows have already passed. Distances are center to center, rounded to 10 km. Instants at very shallow perigees can differ from other tables by up to about 20 minutes; see the method note below.
How much bigger does the Moon look at perigee?
About 14 percent wider than at apogee, and about 30 percent brighter, because brightness scales with the disc's area. In the sky that is the difference between roughly 29.4 and 33.5 arcminutes across. Side by side the change is obvious. On any single night it is not, since there is nothing in the sky to compare the Moon against. The famous "huge moon on the horizon" is an illusion of the landscape, not distance, and a camera shows the same disc size at the horizon and overhead.
What makes a full moon a supermoon or a micromoon?
A supermoon is a full moon that lands close to perigee, a micromoon one that lands close to apogee. Fred Espenak's widely used rule counts a full moon as super when it falls within 90 percent of that orbit's closest approach, which yields three or four a year. Looser rules based on a fixed distance cutoff yield more. The 2026, 2027, and 2028 full moon calendars mark which full moons qualify each year.
Is the Moon moving away from Earth?
Yes, by about 3.8 cm a year, measured by bouncing laser pulses off reflectors left on the surface by Apollo 11, 14, and 15 and the Soviet Lunokhod rovers. The cause is the tides: Earth's tidal bulge sits slightly ahead of the Moon and tugs it forward, lifting it into a higher orbit while slowing Earth's spin by about 2 milliseconds per century. Over a human lifetime that adds about 3 metres, far too small to change anything on this page.
How are these numbers computed?
Distances and instants on this page come from the Astronomy Engine ephemeris library, run each morning by the same job that rewrites the rest of the site. Every row of the perigee and apogee table was checked against Fred Espenak's perigee and apogee catalog at astropixels.com and a second Meeus-based calculation. Distances agree within 20 km on all rows, and this page reads about 10 km lower than Espenak throughout, so distances are rounded to 10 km. Instants agree within 2 minutes on most rows, but at the shallowest perigees, the ones near 368,000 to 370,000 km where the distance changes by less than a kilometre an hour, the exact minute is not well defined and this table can differ from Espenak's by up to about 20 minutes. The Lumara app computes its own distance figure on your device with a shorter Meeus series, good to about 150 km, so it may differ from this page by a little.
Quick answers.
How far is the Moon from Earth right now?
Tonight's figure is at the top of this page, computed for 02:00 UTC and rewritten every morning. The average is 384,400 km; the range over a month is about 356,000 to 407,000 km.
How long does light take to reach the Moon?
About 1.28 seconds at average distance, 1.19 seconds at the closest perigee, 1.36 seconds at the farthest apogee.
When is the next supermoon?
The next full moon that falls near perigee is listed in the current year's full moon calendar. In 2026 they are November 24 and December 24; in 2027, January 22 and February 20; in 2028, January 12 through April 9.