When you look around you, youâre not seeing the world as it is, youâre seeing the world as it was, a fraction of a second ago. And the further things are, the further back in time youâre looking. The distance to the Moon is, on average, about 384,000 km. Light takes about 1.28 seconds to get from the Moon to the Earth. If there was a large explosion on the Moon of a secret Nazi base, you wouldnât see it for just over a second.