To Understand the Meaning of a Solar Eclipse | Evolution News
The rare places where observers can exist are also the best places for observing. The universe seems to be designed not just for life but also for discovery.
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Finely Tuned
The sun is a giant ball of gas and plasma. The moon is a much smaller rock. And yet, during a total eclipse, they mark off the same space in our sky. They match. On Earth, we can see not just total eclipses, but what we might call perfect solar eclipses.
The moon is about 400 times smaller than the sun. But the moon is also about 400 times closer to the earth than is the sun. As a result, the size of the moon matches the size of the sun from our perspective. And since they appear as round disks, they match in both size and shape.
Physics doesn’t require this arrangement. There are 65 major moons in our solar system and many smaller ones. But only we enjoy perfect solar eclipses when a moon just barely covers the sun’s bright photosphere. If there were life forms on Mars or Jupiter, they wouldn’t see such eclipses.
So the best place to view total solar eclipses in our solar system is just where there are observers to see them. Let that sink in a minute.
A Habitable Planet
Most astronomers chalk this up to coincidence. And yet, without this precise arrangement of the earth, the moon, and the sun, we probably wouldn’t exist.
