Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Surface Area of the Moon vs. Earth
Summary
If you could wrap the Moon in a gigantic cloth and then unwrap the cloth and spread it out on the Earth, how much of the Earth's surface would it cover?
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Assessment
An area about the size of the continents of Australia and Africa combined. The Moon has a radius of about 1740 km, giving the Moon a surface area of 4ð’
References and Resources
This SERC page describes the use of Back of the Envelope Calculations
A View from the Back of the Envelope (more info) : This site has a good number of easy simulations and visualizations of back of the envelope calculations.
The Back of the Envelope : This page outlines one of the essays in the book "Programming Pearls" (ISBN 0-201-65788-0). The book is written for computer science faculty and students, but this portion speaks very well to back of the envelope calculations in general.