Soldiers ask a tourist to evacuate Mirador beach ahead of Hurricane Beryl's expected arrival in Tulum, Mexico, July 4, 2024. (Photo by Fernando Llano/AP Photo)
Models smoke during a break at Sevilla de Boda (Seville Wedding) fashion show in the Andalusian capital of Seville November 27, 2015. (Photo by Marcelo del Pozo/Reuters)
A man poses for a pictures, as he transport logs on his bull-cart to make charcoal at La Campanera village, Nicaragua, May 22, 2015. Around 300 families live off the sale of charcoal in this area located in the dry corridor of Nicaragua. Friday marks World Environment Day. Picture taken May 22, 2015. REUTERS/Oswaldo Rivas
After their wedding ceremony, groom and bride, Nathan Mauger, Connie Young with family and friends, toast to the solar eclipse from the Rose Garden in Manito Park, Monday, August 21, 2017, in Spokane, Wash. (Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review via AP Photo)
The Arabian mare “Jenny” curiously sniffs at the child of Raphael Wöllstein, who is on his way to the train, on her daily walk through the Fechenheim district of Frankfurt, Germany on March 8, 2019. Her owner opens the stable door for the 22-year-old horse every morning. Then the animal can decide for itself where it wants to spend the day. So that nobody thinks she's escaped, a sign with the inscription “My name is Jenny, didn't run away, just go for a walk” is on the halter. (Photo by Boris Roessler/dpa)
In this photo provided by Mickey Nuttall, members of an international team of skydivers join hands, flying head-down to build their world record skydiving formation, Friday, July 31, 2015, over Ottawa, Ill. (Photo by Jason Peters via AP Photo)
Rescue operations are undergoing to recover the sunken ferry MV Miraj 4 in the Megna River near Munshiganj, Bangladesh, 16 May 2014. The death toll in the Bangladesh ferry disaster rose to 26 on 16 May, including children and women and many more feared dead as the ferry, carrying more than 200 passengers on board, sunk during a storm on 15 may 2014, police authorities said. (Photo by Abir Abdullah/EPA)
Our moon is a pretty big object. It's big enough to be a respectable planet in its own right, if it were orbiting the sun instead of the Earth. (Actually, it is orbiting the sun in a nearly perfectly circular orbit, that the Earth only slightly perturbs... but that's a topic for another day.) The Moon is a quarter the diameter of the Earth. Only Pluto has a satellite that is larger, in proportion to the size of the planet it orbits.