Reddit user boredboarder8 created the below image overlaying the United States on the Moon. The lower forty-eight United States would cover about twenty percent of the Moon’s surface but certainly would be visible from the Earth. (Hat tip: Flowing Data via friend Blueland)
The math works out as the forty-eight contiguous United States has a land area of 3,119,884 square miles (8,080,464 square kilometers). Meanwhile the Moon’s surface area is roughly 14,600,000 square miles (37,800,000 square kilometers). Therefore the United States would cover roughly 40 percent of the Moon’s visible surface.
How Big Is the United States Compared With the Moon?
The comparison is striking because the Moon is much smaller than it can appear from Earth. The contiguous United States covers a little over one-fifth of the Moon’s total surface area.
If only one lunar hemisphere is considered, the lower 48 states are equivalent to roughly two-fifths of that area. The graphic is best understood as a visual comparison rather than a precise equal-area projection, but it gives an immediate sense of scale.
Why the Comparison Is So Surprising
We normally think about the United States and the Moon using completely different scales. Putting the two directly together makes the relationship much easier to visualize.
At the same scale, the contiguous United States stretches across a substantial portion of the Moon’s visible face. It is a simple comparison, but one that makes the size of both the United States and the Moon easier to understand.
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