CAN WE PUT ALL THE PLANETS BETWEEN THE EARTH AND THE MOON?

The short answer to this question is: it depends on how you put them.

It may seem simple enough to give an answer to this question, but it is not enough to add up the diameters of all the planets and see if their sum is less than the distance between the Earth and the Moon. In fact, there are several variables to consider.

First, the Moon moves around the Earth in an elliptical orbit, which means that the Earth-Moon distance varies over time. At perigee the distance is about 360,000 km, while at apogee it is 405,000 km. The average distance can be assumed to be 384 thousand km.

However, this is the distance from the center of the Earth to the center of the Moon, whereas we are interested in the distance from surface to surface. From the above values we must then subtract the radius of the Earth, 6371 km, and the radius of the Moon, 1731 km.

Second, we have to take into account that the planets are not perfect spheres, but are compressed at the poles. In fact, the polar diameter is always smaller than the equatorial diameter, and in the case of gas giants, this difference is significant. So the total length occupied by the planets varies depending on how they are positioned. Instead, if we use the average diameter and add up all the planets, we get a value of just over 380,000 km.

Comparing the values obtained here, we see that it is possible to fit all the planets between the Earth and the Moon when the Moon is near apogee, while at perigee the distance is too small to accommodate them all.

A final note to help us understand the size of the Sun. Our star has a diameter of 1.4 million km, which is 3.6 times greater than the distance between the Earth and the Moon!