Is the sun bigger than the moon?

Question

I have a bet with my brother who says the sun is way bigger and he's totally gonna lose because the sun and the moon are the same size and the moon sometimes even looks bigger. In the movie ET the moon is like totaly huge. The winner of the bet gets to punch the loser in the stomach with FULL FORCE hee hee even though my brother is like 4 times biger than me and 10 times stronger he's really gonna hurt when I sock him!!!

Answer 1

I don't care about the little dare with your brother.

However, the sun is tremendously bigger than the moon. You should know this from school.

The only reason they look the same size to us in the sky is because of the fact that the moon is REALLY close to us, and the sun is REALLY far from us.

Answer 2

The sun is bigger than the moon. Because the sun is a star and has more mass and density than the moon. The sun warms earth every day, gives us the light by which we see and is absolutely necessary for life on Earth.
The sun is our nearest star. We will look at the parts of the sun, the amazing way it makes light and heat, and its major features. The moon was discovered and explored in 1969 at night the sun is so powerful that it lights the moon. The moon is just a giant rock planet with craters in the solar system. So the Sun is bigger. The moon is smaller. Now you have information to win.

Answer 3

Let's put it this way. All light rays coming from the Sun to the Earth are essentially parallel when they go by the Earth. How can this be you ask with the Sun being a sphere and the rays should all be going straight out from a rounded surface. Well, the part of the surface of the Sun taken up by the minuscule Earth seems straight and flat. The Sun is that huge of a sphere. Now, the Moon is even smaller than the Earth. So, you lose, the Moon is much much much smaller than the Sun. The Moon is only approx 200,000 miles away on average, the Sun is approx 93,000,000 miles away on average.
Another example of perspective... Some town out in the Midwest has a scaled model solar system. A side wall of I think it was a TV station was painted yellow to symbolize the sun. A few miles away there is a gas station with a globe to represent the Earth. That globe is only slight larger than a beach ball. From the entire wall of a larger than average building to a beach ball...see the difference in size?

Answer 4

Sorry dood, but the answer is:

The sun IS bigger than the moon.

The Sun happens to be 400 times the Moon's diameter, and 400 times as far away. That coincidence means the Sun and Moon appear to be the same size when viewed from Earth.

Check out the links below and you will see that I and a good number of others here answering, are correct.

Answer 5

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Is the sun bigger than the moon?
I have a bet with my brother who says the sun is way bigger and he's totally gonna lose because the sun and the moon are the same size and the moon sometimes even looks bigger. In the movie ET the moon is like totaly huge. The winner of the bet gets to punch the loser in the stomach with FULL...

Answer 6

well, alll i can say is that ur gonna lose that bet. PREPARE URSELF 4 A REAL HARD PUNCH!!!
i would probably commend ur bro 4 making a bet eh knows he's gonna win. don't believe everything u see in movies, especially ones like ET which r based mainly on special effects.

the sun has a diameter of 1,392,000 kilometres, which therrefore means it is large enough to contain well over a million planets the size of Earth.

the moon on the otherr hand has a diameter of only 3,476 kilometres.
the moon might seem larger than the sun bcuz it is closer to the Earth than the sun. the earth is 150 km from the sun while the moon is, at the greatest measurement, 406,697 km.

hope this helps. sorry about ur bet, mayb u can call it off. and next time, dont make a bet like that without checking ur facts first=P.

Answer 7

If you are talking about maximum apparent size as seen from the Earth.

The moon is about 0.52 degree

The sun is about 0.55 degree

You lose.

Even taking statistical average due to variation as the Moon's orbit is elliptical, the Moon's distance from the Earth can vary by about 6% from its average value. Therefore, the Moon's apparent size varies with its distance from the Earth, and it is this effect that leads to the difference between total and annular eclipses.

The distance of the Earth from the Sun also varies during the year, but this is a smaller effect. On average, the Moon appears to be slightly smaller than the Sun, so the majority (about 60%) of central eclipses are annular. It is only when the Moon is closer to the Earth than average (near its perigee) that a total eclipse occurs.

Answer 8

The sun is bigger, it is even bigger than the earth!!

The reason that the moon looks as large is the moon is a lot closer to the earth!!

Maybe you can do his chores for a month, rather than getting hit in the stomach!!!

Answer 9

You will lose your bet since it has been proven that the sun is much much bigger (about 400 times bigger) than the moon. The fact that they appear the same size is because the sun is also 400 times farther away than the moon is.

Source: http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=2196

Hey, just for fun I suggest that you can tease your brother by telling him that if someone consider the "point of view" being a place on Earth, then their relative size is just the same! So no-one loses.
Well, it's just for fun... since the Sun is really bigger than the moon.

Answer 10

Sorry! You lost your bet.
The sun is bigger than the moon. It just appears to you that they are of same size because the sun is very far away from the earth and the moon is comparatively nearer to the earth in comparison to the sun.

Answer 11

An allegory for you: you are the moon and your brother is the sun. Does that answer things?

They occupy nearly the same visual space in the sky but that is because the sun is about 500 times further from the Earth as the moon so it only appears to be the same size.