”Blessed is He who has placed in the sky great stars and placed therein a [burning] lamp and luminous moon.” (Surat Al-Furqan: 25:61).

Our Solar System is full of Moons; Mars has 2, Jupiter owns more than 67, Saturn is surrounded by more than 62, while Uranus has about 27, and Neptune is encircled by about 14 moons.

For several astronomical reasons, Earth has a single natural satellite which is our nearest neighbor, the terrestrial Moon. It orbits the Earth with respect to the fixed stars once every 27.3 days.

Although our Moon isn’t the largest natural satellite in the Solar System, if we excluded the Dwarf Planets and their systems, the terrestrial Moon will be the largest natural satellite relative to the size of the object it orbits. Our Moon is also the second most dense natural satellite after Jupiter’s Io.

The distance between the Moon and us varies from around 356,400 km to 406,700 km at closest and farthest, respectively.

Do you know how Allah created our bright reflective neighbor?

Have a look at the infograph beneath presented by the infographic artist Karl Tate from Space.com:

This article is from our archive, originally published on an earlier date, and now republished for its importance.