When there is a total eclipse, the Moon, although smaller and closer to earth, than the Sun..?

Question

..at the time of total eclipse, covers the sun EXACTLY! Is this the biggest coincidence in the World or am I missing something obvious?

Answer 1

it only gets between the earth and the sun creating a shadow in some parts of the world.

Answer 2

Well, not exactly. Sometimes the sun appears a little bigger(annular eclipse) and sometimes the sun appears a little smaller (total eclipse), but you are basically correct. It is a huge coincidence that the Sun just happens to be ~400 times bigger than the Moon, and it is also ~400 times farther away! Our Moon used to be a lot closer, and it is slowly getting farther away. We live in a very privileged time! On Mars Phobos only covers ~1/2 of the solar disk, but Callisto can just barely cover the Sun from Amalthea, but the Sun is only 1/5 as big! So Earth is the place to be for viewing solar eclipses, assuming clouds don't interfere.

Answer 3

Yes, you are correct. The matching of apparent size of the sun and moon is a great coincidence/

To my knowledge, there is no other moon in the solar system that can create such a perfect eclipse as seen from its host planet.

The sun averages 408 times as far away as the moon and is 408 times the diameter.

Ignore some crap answers. Many eclipses feature an almost exact fit, otherwise the effect would not be the same. When the moon is on a far part of its orbit it doesn't quite cover so the sun is not completely covered - things won't go quite dark on the eclipse path on Earth.

If the moon is on a near part of its elliptical orbit, it covers too much and the eclipse will not show that fantastic display of the solar flares and plasma activity.

But many eclipses are almost a perfect fit.

If the sun is 408 times as wide as the moon, of course that means it is 408 x 408 x 408 the volume of the moon.

I'll leave you to work that one out.

Answer 4

The moon is closer, and so is larger than the sun appears to be from Earth. The moon does not cover the sun exactly - if the moon were slightly larger or smaller the eclipse would look the same. What you are seeing is simply the blacking out of a large portion of the sun, and the glowing effect from the surface of the moon (the same reflectingthat you see at night) creates that border.

Answer 5

It is all to do with the sizes.

The moon is about 3,500 Km accross, and the sun is about 1,400,000km accross. A staggering 400 times bigger.

The moon is about 384,000 km from the earth, whilst the sun is about 149,600,000km, almost 400 times the difference. How is that for odds.

The 2 balance each other out (The suns large size to the moon and the distance between the bodies.

There is a little known eclipse where the moon is at a different point, where by the moon does not block out the sun. It instead look like a donut in the sky. This is called Annular Eclipse.

Answer 6

Ok, this is where I add info becauser all the answers are good ...following the law of tangents, there is no sun reflection off of the moon during a total eclipse. We "see" the same moon we always see but it is a black circle void of light. No atmosphere to refract the sunlight. In the variance of distance from Earth, the solar eclipse coverage of the sun does vary from full totality to annular. Even at full totality we can still see a lot of flares and the corona. And in parting, never stare at the eclipse without protection.

Answer 7

It is a coincidence. An even bigger coincidence is that the Moon's tidal effect is the same order of magnitude as the Sun's. The Sun has more than 80 million times the mass of the Moon but it is more than 300 times as far away. Tidal pull drops off as the cube of distance, and 300 cubed is similar in magnitude to 80 million; these two large numbers come close to cancelling each other out.

Answer 8

The angular sizes of the moon and solar are no longer continuously the comparable; it relies upon on the place the moon is in it orbit because it distance varies from the Earth, in spite of the shown fact that it additionally relies upon the place Earth is at in its orbit using fact the Earth's distance variety the solar varies to boot. The adjustments interior the respective distances from us replace their angular length. Billions of years in the past, the moon became lots nearer to the Earth. It basically so occurs that interior of recorded historical past, the moon will at times be the suitable length to absolutely blot out the solar in an entire eclipse.

Answer 9

It is an amazing coincidence but not the biggest. The fact that the earth conditions were exactly right for life to evolve is an even bigger and more amazing coincidence. All such coincidences however may only be apparent and may in fact be no coincidence at all if something behind it 'planned' them to be exactly that way.

Answer 10

Out of the tens of billions of planets with moons, in this galaxy alone, there may well be many moons that, when viewed from the planet, appear to fill the same arc of space as their primary.

Since we have direct knowledge of almost no other planetary systems in detail it is only an assumption that this type of coincidence is rare; for all we know it could be relatively common.

Answer 11

It is pure happenstance. A billion years ago, the moon was noticeably closer to the earth than it is now (so it looked bigger); a billion years hence, it will be somewhat farther away. The moon's distance from earth is presently increasing at an inch per year; this rate will decrease very slowly in the future.