Is it pure coincidence that the sun and moon to us appear to have the same diameter?

Question

during an eclipse the sun is exactly covered by the moon

Answer 1

Yes, it is complete coincidence.

Answer 2

It is a mystery. The moon is at 'exactly' the right distance to create a total solar eclipse. A few kilometres either way and there wouldn't be such a thing as a total eclipse. The moon does not rotate! The size of the moon and the gravitational effect of Earth are not compatible, ie the moon is 'far' too big to hold its current orbit. The only way the moon, at that size, could hold that orbit is if it were hollow. One of the probes landed on the moon, with vibration measuring equipment on board, found that the moon was still resonating from a previous landing. There have been very old cave paintings found 'somewhere' depicting the arrival of the moon.

The moon is an enigma.

Answer 3

Well, more or less... there are instances where the moon produces an "annular" eclipse - a ring of the sun is visible around the moon, and other periods where the moon produces a 'complete occultation' eclipse - where the moon more than exceeds the apparent size of the sun.

And, if you look back in time, the moon was MUCH closer than it is now, and it is slowly moving away, about an inch and change per year.... It's either complete coincidince, or a design by a greater being enticing us to explore the heavens.

You choose.

Answer 4

Yes, it is pure coincidense. The moon is 1/390th the size of the sun and is 1/390th the distance of the sun. We are very lucky to have a moon that is that size. The Moon is moving away from Earth slowly. In a few million years, we will only have "annular" eclipses.

Answer 5

Yes, it is. But that's gradually changing.

As the Moon works on the ocean tides to slow the Earth's rotation by about 2 to 7 one-millionths of a second per year, it picks up angular momentum from the Earth trying to rotate and keep the rotational speed of the ocean with it. The Moon gains a little angular momentum and has to climb to a fractionally higher orbit (one and a half inches further away from Earth each year.).

The Law of Conservation of Energy is proven once again.

Thousands of years from now, the Moon will not be able to blot out the Sun in it's entirety. In fact, if you do a little more research, you'll learn that it truly doesn't quite blot out the Sun even now.

Answer 6

yes
Not all solar eclipses totally cover the sun.
However, since the moon is about 233,000 miles away, and the sun is 94 million miles away they appear to be almost equal in size. But the sun is really huge. The sun's volume can hold 1,300,000 earths.

Answer 7

Yes! The sun is about 400 times larger than the moon and is about 400 times further away.

Answer 8

Pretty much, yes. The moon is slowly moving away from the Earth however. In the distant past it appeared much larger. In the somewhat distant future, it will appear smaller and total solar eclipses will no longer be possible.

Answer 9

Well, the diameter that we the Sun and the Moon can change do to their positions in the solar system at any given time, but most of our atmosphere can distort them a lot making them appear smaller or larger

Answer 10

They seem to have the same diameter because the moon is much closer to us than the sun, so objects closer look bigger than those further away

Answer 11

Actually, it depends on the relative density of the atmosphere at the time of viewing as to weather you see them the same size. sometimes at sunset the sun will appear very much larger in diameter than the Moon but mostly they appear the same.