How far away is the Moon?

The Moon follows a slightly elliptical orbit, so its distance changes. At its closest point, called perigee, it is about 363,300 kilometres away, and at its farthest, apogee, about 405,500 kilometres, giving an average of roughly 384,400 kilometres. That is about 30 times the diameter of Earth. The Apollo astronauts took around three days to travel there. Scientists measure the distance precisely by bouncing lasers off reflectors left on the surface by Apollo missions, which show the Moon is slowly drifting away from Earth by about 3.8 centimetres a year.