How long does it take to go to the moon?

The moon is an average of 238,855 miles from the Earth, and it took around 3 days for astronauts on Apollo missions to reach it. The New Horizons probe, which bypassed the moon just 8 hours and 35 minutes after it was launched, did not slow down on its path to Pluto.

At its closest approach, which is known as perigree, the moon is only 225,623 miles from the Earth. By contrast, at apogee, which is when the moon is its farthest away from Earth, it is 252,088 miles off. Scientists say that the moon is moving away from Earth at a very slow rate — 1.5 inches per year.