Re: Why does the moon appear to follow you when driving in a car?

Dear Ms Brissette,
The Moon appears to follow you while driving in a car because it is almost a quarter of a million miles away. The houses and telephone poles that flit by your window are only a few dozen feet away and your car zooms past them very quickly indeed. Have you noticed that the most distant trees and farms you can see on the horizon as you motor down I-94 hardly seem to move at all? That's because they are several miles away and stay in your field of vision for many minutes.

Our Earth is only about 8 000 miles in diameter and your auto trip is only a few dozens of miles on any one night. But our moon is some 240 000 miles away orbiting around us. The only way to get "past" it would be to fly off the planet in a space ship!

The next time you're traveling on a moonlit night, roll up a piece of paper into a narrow tube. Watch the moon through it, staying in the same position in the car, and you'll seem to move past the moon quickly because your field of vision will be very narrow.

Yours truly,
Jim Foerch
Pine Academy
Grand Rapids, Michigan