Surface of the Moon, artwork. Earth's Moon is an airless, barren rocky world with impact craters (one at centre), little to no erosion, and extremes of day and night temperatures (minus 170 to 120 degrees Celsius), harsh sunlight and deep shadows. The Moon has a diameter less than a third that of Earth, and orbits the Earth at a distance of around 385,000 kilometres. The gravity is around a sixth that of Earth. The Earth and Moon are around 150 million kilometres from the Sun.