Joe is Vanguard's global chief economist and head of Vanguard Investment Strategy Group. He's also a member of the senior portfolio management team in Vanguard Fixed Income Group.
Apollo missions took about three days to reach the moon. But the quickest trip to the moon was the New Horizons probe, which zipped past the moon in just 8 hours 35 minutes on its way to Pluto. However, the spacecraft didn't even slow down or approach lunar orbit. Tidal forces.
The moon orbits the earth in a little under 28 earth days. It travels at almost 2,290 miles per hour. Coincidentally, the moon's rotation period is also a little under 28 days, meaning the same face points toward the earth during its entire orbit.The English word month is derived from moonth, which was how long the moon was observed to take to return to a specific phase. This is known as a sidereal month and is measured by observing how long it takes the Moon to pass a fixed star on the celestial sphere. 2  A synodic month is 29.53 days (29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 2.8 seconds) and is measured from New Moon to New Moon.