If you believe, they put a Michigan man on the moon.

My first real interest in astronomy was piqued about 15 years ago on the gulf coast beaches of Florida. With little light pollution obscuring a night sky view I was able to see more stars at once than at any other time. I started thinking about what was out there, how far things were and different ways to try and comprehend truly astronomical numbers. It was just fun to ask myself all those questions!

I often correct my friends when I hear them say something along the lines of "the moon is bigger than usual tonight". I point out that there is a simple explanation behind why it looks so large. When the moon is near the horizon it appears larger because the eye references it to the size of objects on the ground. This gives the illusion of the moon looking much larger than when it is high in a clear night sky.

With this "point of reference" consideration in mind, I started to think to myself, how big would the earth look from the moon? While I know the earth would look significantly larger in the night sky from the moon, I thought it would be interesting to see what a known point of reference, such as the state of Michigan, would look like on the moon from earth. So, I took an image of the moon and one of Michigan and scaled Michigan to the approximate size it would appear as on the moon. Michigan is approximately 400 miles long and wide and the moon is approximately 2150 miles in diameter which would make Michigan, oh, about 18.5% of the diameter of the moon.

Bigger than I imagined. In this example I have placed the state on top of the crater Copernicus.

So, next time you look up at a full moon, here's something to think about.