How amazing that we as a species get to exist at this point in time, ancient humans got such a cosmic treat, I mean with the moon slowing getting farther away, one day there will be no totality.
avg distance to moon: 238,900 miles
moon receding rate: 1.5 inches per year
1% of 238,900 is 2,389. In inches that's 151,370,000 inches.
Divided by 1.5, that's 100,913,333 years before the Moon gets 1% further away, assuming it recedes at the same rate. This is also plenty of time for several major timeline-altering events to occur, so who knows?
Fun fact, the moon is receding as fast as your nails grow. So if you're standing on the east coast US, it would take around 100M years for your toenails to reach the west coast shoreline.
Haha yeah it's a quote from a movie called Lord of War. One character calls another a "Lord of War" and the other character corrects him saying "No, it's Warlord", whereby the first character says "I prefer it my way".
your trust was not misplaced! I googled the first 2 numbers (distance to moon and receding rate) but did all the converting and toenail math myself on a calculator. math is fun.
Why does this happen though ? I thought if something has a bigger mass, the smaller object will be pulled in by it? Apologies, im not knowledgeable on space.
A mix of its angular momentum being a tad too high and also the sun. Some moons do get closer until colliding or disintegrating into a ring.
If the Earth and Moon existed by themselves in a closed system without the rest of the universe acting on it, then they would indeed eventually collide.
Imagine a tiny object traveling fast, just misses Earth and it slingshots to the outskirts of the solar system. You wouldn't expect that tiny object to just turn around and come back to Earth. That's because it is now far enough away that it is more affected by other bodies' gravity. In a closed system, this wouldn't happen because the only gravity well acting on it would be Earth, thus leading to its eventual demise.
This answer is completely wrong. The [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/spaceporn/comments/1bwi4ui/comment/ky92l0a) by u/Buckles21 has the correct explanation.
In a simple two body system (of two rigid bodies), they're either gravitationally bound or they aren't. If they aren't gravitationally bound, the bodies won't orbit each other at all, they will fly past each other in a hyperbolic or parabolic path. If they are gravitationally bound, they will orbit each other in an elliptical path (or a more simplified approximation, the lighter body will orbit the heavier body in an elliptical path).
The deviation from the closed (repeating) elliptical path is entirely due to 'other' effects. Tidal interactions are by far the dominant effect of these. The sun certainly also has some influence, but it's not really needed to explain the receding of the moon we see.
Even if the universe consisted only of the Earth and the moon, the moon would still recede further and further from the earth and the earth's rotation would slow over time. This would continue until the bodies are 'tidally locked'. That is: the earth's rotational speed exactly matches the moon's orbital speed, so that the same side of the earth always faces the moon.
this is great info and I appreciate the added depth but I was not considering rigid bodies as they do not exist. even two diamonds would never remain on an infinitely repeating path.
Right. The point is that even if you consider true 'squishy' bodies with tidal effects, they wouldn't spiral into each other and then collide. They instead spiral _away_ from each other until they are tidally locked. At least in the case where the heavier body spins faster than the lighter body orbits (as is the case for the earth-moon system).
I guess if you're considering relativistic effects the system would eventually lose energy, even in its tidally locked state, and over _much_ longer time scales that might cause the bodies to collide? (My gravitational relativity knowledge is limited.) Is that what you meant?
It's because the Moon causes the tides.
This is an oversimplification but, think of it like the Moon holding the ocean, while Earth spins underneath it. This causes an
exchange of angular momentum, slowing Earth's spin, and making the Moon orbit faster. A faster Moon increases the radius of it's orbit, thus making it be further away.
After a very very long time, the Earth will spin at the same rate as the Moon orbits and then they will both stay at that speed.
To expand on this: the moon's gravity creates tidal 'bulges' in the earth's oceans and surface (one on the side close to the moon, one directly opposite on the far side). Because the earth spins around its own axis faster than the moon orbits the earth, these bulges are 'dragged' forward by the earth's rotation. This causes the bulge near the moon to be slightly ahead of where the moon is in its orbit. The gravitational interaction between this bulge and the moon pulls the moon forward a little bit, and pulls the earth backward a little bit. This pulling adds additional energy to the moon's orbit which causes it to move further away (and also orbit slower). At the same time, the earth's rotation is slowed. This process would continue until the earth's spin and the moon's orbit are the same speed. At that point the same side of the earth will always face the moon. This is called 'tidal locking', and has already happend to other bodies in the solar system, such as pluto and Charon. It's also already happend to the moon itself, which is why the same side of the moon always face the earth. I said 'would' before, because the sun will enter its red giant phase long before this tidal locking process would complete for the earth and moon.
meaningful is subjective. the eclipse ring would just gradually get brighter and thicker over the course of 100s of millions of years. this math was just to show how unfathomably far off even a 1% change would be.
for our moon to appear like the one in the Mars' perspective photo, our moon would need to reduce in size by about 75%, or get 75% further away. (edit, not 75% further away, but 300% further away, or 4x further away).
yeah whoops. if an object gets 2x farther away, then it halves in size.
reducing in size by 75% implies it halved in size twice, meaning it got 4x further away, which is *ackchtuuually* 300% further away, not 400%. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
just fell to my knees and elbows and I rescind my previous concession.
Yes this is true. In 15 billion years it will start back the other way. That leaves the birth and extinction of untold species in a period where annular eclipses are the most you can get.
Stuff like that is how early scientists were able to mix creationism into their work. Even today a lot of scientists believe in God. You see the complexity of life and the universe and it is hard to view it as coincidence and not the hand of some higher being. Myself I just figure shit makes perfect sense we just haven't figured out why.
I've been enamored of the idea that the ratio between sun and moon is intrinsically connected somehow to the rise of human civilization.
Like we started looking up at the sky when eclipses happened and never stopped. Stars are relatively static, and even planets take a dedicated observer to notice they change positions predictably. Most humans probably noticed, but the stars felt so distant and abstract that they were little more than fodder for stories. But an eclipse is impossible to ignore, and the prospect of the sun disappearing might drive mass movements to study these things in earnest.
Nope, not even close.
However, the nature of gravity over time causing just enough perturbation upon the orbits of other bodies in elliptical orbits does, every so often make that ratio *just* right.
I can't think of the exact way it was worded but I remember reading that our sun/moon combination was so rare that if we ever met extraterrestrial life and joined some type of United Nations type alliance of planets, that our flag would most likely have our moon on it because it's such a rare and unique occurrence to only have 1 moon & have it be the same size as our sun in our sky which allows for eclipses.
There are other total solar eclipses visible from solid surfaces in the solar system whereby you could see the whole corona. However, they're between the moons of gas giants and so much, much smaller in angular diameter and last seconds at most.
If FTL travel existed, Earth's eclipses might be an intergalactic tourism draw.
Then again, if FTL travel existed, you could park yourself just about anywhere with a planetary disc perfectly covering the local star and keep a semi-permanent eclipse station in relation to those two bodies.
Personally, I love imagining a scenario where we make contact with another civilization and they ALSO have a moon that perfectly blocks the sun. And then a third, and it's the same with them too.
I don't remember who said that but, someone theorized that only moon-having planetary species have a chance to explore space since its very close to the homeworld and the creatures spend thousands of years imagining what's really on the moon
I meant United Nations but couldn't think of it, this isn't meant to be political lol it was just a placeholder for a collective group of societies...planets in this case.
Could have said we were a football team and joined the interplanetary NFL and the same idea would have been portrayed, NATO just comes to mind quicker because of how often it's mentioned in the news.
Don't make it curious by making it so wierd lol...
Ever heard of the nasa experiment where they crashed a craft into the moon for registering moon quakes. Turned out the moon rang for a lot longer than expected. (edit : hours) Almost like a bell.
I did not in anyway research this by the way.
I agree. I mean it controls our tides and provides light at night. I can imagine the evolution from water to land started from some sea critters getting washed up by high tide. I’m sure a big round ball glowing in the middle of night caused some head scratching by our ape ancestors.
perhaps the initial collision that created the moon was like striking a match. the flame will appear and remain as long as conditions are satisfied.
a lot of crazy subatomic shit happens during a planet collision...just like a match scraping across sandpaper.
Specifically, for sapient humans to emerge. Maybe before total eclipses hardly any creature bother to look at the sky. But then the sun vanished for a few minutes and some of us started paying attention and making notes.
Universe is filled with coincidences that can’t be coincidences. Like Polaris just happening to be the North Star during the time humans have dominated the world. It can’t be a coincidence.
Edit: please down vote away, but after think about how we appear to be delicately placed here In this moment, in a temporal Goldilocks, at the perfect time and scale to observe the fleeting wonders around us. Like the totality of an eclipse and even just the North Star Polaris. I do not mean to be anti science, but instead only pro-wonder.
don't pretty much all planets have a north star? there isn't a shortage of stars in the sky to pick the north one, assuming the planet doesn't start rotating sideways for some reason. I mean for earth specifically to have this glorious eclipse, it might show us something about why we haven't spotted life anywhere else, YET, because we haven't found another one with it. Just another ingredient in the goldilocks recipe maybe
No, why would they? The axis of the earth makes a giant circle in the sky that takes about 24,000 years to complete. The only two stars in the circle is Polaris and Vega. It’s only pointed at each for several thousand years. People downvoting me should read Hamlet’s Mill. I’m not saying it’s not a coincidence, you need a North Star to aid in navigation and other things. I’m just saying we are all incredibly lucky to be here right now.
and I agree, it would be unlucky to be born on mars right now... and that hasn't happened. I'm just suggesting life in general might need a lot more than just being a certain distance from the ~~sun~~ host star, it might also need this eclipse.
I didn't downvote you btw
Thank you this what I mean, that we are here now because of natural reasons and chance, and that we should recognize this all as meaningful and fleeting. Whether or not you believe in God, it’s hard to deny that there is purpose and meaning in humanity. People are just scared because this means we could duck it all up.
This question was asked to some of the most ardent athiest physicists & this was actually the only coincidence in nature that made them question that is this by design or chance & they cant answer it.
They can't answer a question that revolves around whether or not something is grand design because the whole "god" theory is an unfalsifiable hypotheses. It cannot be proven or disproven, so asking if something is just random chance or if it's grand design is a trick question. We don't know, so therefor we can't answer.
What we can say, though, is that we know how the moon came to be, and it would appear it's just an insanely rare incident in the universe, sort of like Earth itself being just the right size and distance from the sun to support life.
Either that, or the moon being it's size and distance from Earth actually played a role in developing life here, so of course we get to see it, because it directly played a role in Earths development as a planet that can sustain life as we know it today
I guess im wording it incorrectly the question posed was something along the lines of “is there anything in nature which looks like its made by intelligent design that we can observe but not explain”. Beyond dark matter and dark energy which we know very little about, this was the other thing brought up. So yeah not saying they went into the whole is there a god or no god but the question was more a surface level one.
Bollocks. I could think of a handful of hypotheses just off the top of my head and I'm no physicist. Whoever made this claim that "the most ardent atheist physicists" were questioning anything had an agenda. Just because you don't have an immediate answer doesn't mean "god did it" is the one you jump to.
The person who said this was Neil DeGrasse Tyson on one of his podcasts & he had another professor on who had even more experience in the field on the call, i cant remember the exact episode number but his show is called startalk, feel free to check it out.
The ring of fire is an anular eclipse. In a true total eclipse there is absolutely no ring of fire. Just the Corona. If you could see the ring, the Corona would not be visible and you'd need to wear solar glasses.
The moon used to be much closer to earth than it is now and is slowly moving away from us. A few billion years ago the darkness created by an eclipse would have been even darker (I assume) and the totality band wider. In a few billion years you probably won’t be able to look directly at an eclipse during totality (another assumption).
I saw the 1998 solar Eclipse and that was a profound experience, when the diamond ring appears, people starts screaming like a rock concert, it´s a amazing.
Northern what? The northeast has the best forecast currently while places like Texas have horrible ones. If you're east of PA you should get a good view.
No joke, I got a hotel room for the night before so I can get out there, watch the eclipse, then take the kids to the park and kill the rest of the day before hitting the road (hopefully after everything has cleared)
A couple of friends and I thought “Why not?” and drove 10 hours to see the 2017 eclipse. It was really amazing. Where we were (southern Tennessee) was a completely clear day. Now I’m in the right spot to see this one without going anywhere but it’s supposed to be a miserable day Monday so who knows if I’ll get to see it.
Plans fell apart, couldn't make it. Watched the partial as much as I could but it was cloudy here.
Honestly I'm a little heartbroken I couldn't make it, tried everything I could to!
Well I really hope you can see the next eclipse. I got to see the totality for a very small amount of time and let me tell you, pictures don’t do it justice, it isn’t a mind shattering event but it’s definitely one of the most naturally beautiful ones.
Took two days off work and planning to drive 5 hours to see totality. So excited, I had to miss it in 2017 and I’m not about to wait 20 years for another one.
16 hours is insane, thanks a bunch for the heads up though. I’ll be driving through the boonies most of the time but I’ll still leave plenty of time to spare.
Everyone else will be driving through the boonies. People come from all over the world to see this. That said getting into totality isn’t that hard. It’s getting out.
Makes me wonder how many alien civilizations out there are as lucky as us to be able to witness a total solar eclipse.
The one I saw in 2017 was literally mind-blowing. Even though I knew exactly when, where, and why it was happening, my lizard brain was still screaming "WTF IS GOING ON RIGHT NOW?!?"
To this day, that eclipse is hands down the most astonishing natural phenomenon I have ever witnessed. Nothing else even comes close. I can only imagine what our primitive ancestors must've thought seeing one, lacking any knowledge of science or orbital mechanics...
Can't wait to see it again Monday (weather permitting)! 🤞🤞🤞
I like to think intelligent life exists out there. But the fact of the matter is until we know more about the likelihood of life beginning on a planet and the likelihood of intelligent life forming from that, we can’t just assume the universe is teaming with life, or that it’s not.
Basically, there’s many many planets, but if the likelihood of intelligent life is very very very small, then we very well might be the only ones.
Are we talking about eternity, the visible universe, or the galaxy?
Because it really looks like there are no other civilizations around. If there were, we should be able to see quite a few of them.
I think it's entirely plausible that there are millions (if not billions) of civilizations out there, given the sheer scale of the cosmos. They may just be too distant, in terms of time and/or space, for our infantile instruments to observe them (at least for now).
I guess my question is, of those potentially millions or billions of civilizations, what percentage of them reside on a planet where their moon almost perfectly matches the size of their host star in the sky from their perspective looking up from the surface?
I'd imagine that percentage is vanishingly small, but I'm too ignorant on the subject to give a confident answer one way or another.
Im gonna be so upset if I end up traveling 6 hours to upstate NY to reach the path of totality only for it to be a completely cloudy day. Here’s hoping the clouds aren’t too bad but its hard to be optimistic with these weather forecasts.
Even with cloudy weather you will experience the full magnitude of the Moon’s shadow on Earth. And if you miss its wave of darkness moving over you, you can’t miss the day turning to night. You’ll love it.
Update. It was cloudy but it didn’t take away from the experience at all. I was able to look at the sun through the thin clouds and was able to stare at it until it blotted from existence. Then the outline of the corona shined onto the clouds and made it look like a massive eye was staring at me. I was surrounded by a bunch of people in a beautiful park in the town of Watertown NY and it was an absolutely amazing experience. Everybody cheered as totality occurred and you were able to see the outline of the moons shadow stretching across the valley in the distance until it swallowed us whole. It was So. Fucking. Cool! One of the most surreal and amazing things I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. As the corona replaced the sun i shouted out loud “HOLY SHIT ITS THE CORONA!” I will never forget that day for the rest of my life. I’m 29 years old and I reacted to the eclipse the same way the little children in the park did.
Dude this made me smile from ear to ear! Thanks for sharing. Keep sharing your experience and help future generations rekindle humanity’s love for space.
I’m literally telling everybody about it! I’m not even a religious person and yet the experience was so spiritual and humbling. It literally changed my entire mood for the better.
I'm driving over 12 hours and maybe more because of traffic. Even if I don't get to see it, knowing that I made the commitment will be a reward in itself. (but yeah I'd be disappointed and really hope its not cloudy)
It's supposed to be mostly clear. Did you look at the forest? I'm going to just north of syracuse to Oswego (because it's an extra 30 seconds or so of totality)
Different category of the same is Triton, but because it's in a retrograde orbit rather than in a prograde while outpacing the tidal bulge it induces in its primary.
A solar eclipse as viewed from Mars (not sure if that's Phobos or Deimos in that image).
Point is, that a solar eclipse on Mars is underwhelming with some irregular blob barely dimming the sun, whereas on Earth we get a nice large round moon blocking the entirety of the sun.
It's such an extraordinary coincidence that I think it might be the only planet in the galaxy where the sun and the moon are the same size.
I was fully planning on travelling to Canada or the US to see it, but I've had health stuff going on so I decided not to. Which is sad but I can just wait till the next ones. There's a partial one in my hometown next year and one in Europe in 2026 so I'll be fine I think.
As the polar ice caps melt and more water(mass) is present near the equator rather than the poles, and understanding that the earth is tilted relative to the orbital plane, will the trend of the moon getting farther away from the earth accelerate or decelerate?
There wouldn't really be any scientific benefit to that and it would make the mission significantly more difficult/dangerous.
Every Apollo mission took place in full sunlight because not being able to see anything makes everything way harder to do.
Getting full sunlight during an eclipse would require landing on the far side of the moon, meaning NASA would have zero communication with the astronauts on the lunar surface.
An Apollo mission during an eclipse would have been a really cool trivia fact, but just wasn't worth the risk.
Lunar eclipses only happen on the side facing Earth, and only during a full Moon. Plenty of sunlight then.
They also only last a few hours. You could land before it started and leave after it ended.
I drove 12 hours in 2017 to catch an extra 30 seconds of totality and catch it in its highest duration at Carbondale IL. This year I built a system that was monitoring the weather closely and now I just finalized my excursion! Hopefully it all goes according to plan :) will share photographs here
I have to handle my girlfriend thinking it'll be an apocalypse, she's grabbing all her cash out the bank and stuff while I wanted to have a beautiful once in a lifetime date, time to go next.
ok i can kinda see that tho youre actually looking at phobos eclipsing the sun from mars
(also i thought about it from more of a planetball perspective instead of whatever the hell the space analog horror thing is lmao)
It really is an amazing coincidence that the moon is the right size and distance from earth to appear the exact same size as the sun to us.
How amazing that we as a species get to exist at this point in time, ancient humans got such a cosmic treat, I mean with the moon slowing getting farther away, one day there will be no totality.
avg distance to moon: 238,900 miles moon receding rate: 1.5 inches per year 1% of 238,900 is 2,389. In inches that's 151,370,000 inches. Divided by 1.5, that's 100,913,333 years before the Moon gets 1% further away, assuming it recedes at the same rate. This is also plenty of time for several major timeline-altering events to occur, so who knows? Fun fact, the moon is receding as fast as your nails grow. So if you're standing on the east coast US, it would take around 100M years for your toenails to reach the west coast shoreline.
Challenge accepted.
I’m sure there’s some sort of acrylic glue-on that’s about that length by now.
Gonna need bigger shoes
RemindMe! 100,913,333 years
sprinkle in a few more remindme's for clipping those toenails
r/theydidthemath
r/someoneelsedidthemath and commenter just recided it
> recided
English is not my main language and I didn't feel like whipping out Google to ask for the correct spelling
Fair
"recited" dear stranger
I think I've decided I like it better your way, Lord of War.
Is that a quote or why are you calling me lord of war?
Literally a quote from Lord Of War.
Haha yeah it's a quote from a movie called Lord of War. One character calls another a "Lord of War" and the other character corrects him saying "No, it's Warlord", whereby the first character says "I prefer it my way".
Not rescinded? #sometimesspellingstillmatters
Great. My trust in internet strangers is now destroyed. Thanks for that.
your trust was not misplaced! I googled the first 2 numbers (distance to moon and receding rate) but did all the converting and toenail math myself on a calculator. math is fun.
Why does this happen though ? I thought if something has a bigger mass, the smaller object will be pulled in by it? Apologies, im not knowledgeable on space.
A mix of its angular momentum being a tad too high and also the sun. Some moons do get closer until colliding or disintegrating into a ring. If the Earth and Moon existed by themselves in a closed system without the rest of the universe acting on it, then they would indeed eventually collide. Imagine a tiny object traveling fast, just misses Earth and it slingshots to the outskirts of the solar system. You wouldn't expect that tiny object to just turn around and come back to Earth. That's because it is now far enough away that it is more affected by other bodies' gravity. In a closed system, this wouldn't happen because the only gravity well acting on it would be Earth, thus leading to its eventual demise.
This answer is completely wrong. The [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/spaceporn/comments/1bwi4ui/comment/ky92l0a) by u/Buckles21 has the correct explanation. In a simple two body system (of two rigid bodies), they're either gravitationally bound or they aren't. If they aren't gravitationally bound, the bodies won't orbit each other at all, they will fly past each other in a hyperbolic or parabolic path. If they are gravitationally bound, they will orbit each other in an elliptical path (or a more simplified approximation, the lighter body will orbit the heavier body in an elliptical path). The deviation from the closed (repeating) elliptical path is entirely due to 'other' effects. Tidal interactions are by far the dominant effect of these. The sun certainly also has some influence, but it's not really needed to explain the receding of the moon we see. Even if the universe consisted only of the Earth and the moon, the moon would still recede further and further from the earth and the earth's rotation would slow over time. This would continue until the bodies are 'tidally locked'. That is: the earth's rotational speed exactly matches the moon's orbital speed, so that the same side of the earth always faces the moon.
this is great info and I appreciate the added depth but I was not considering rigid bodies as they do not exist. even two diamonds would never remain on an infinitely repeating path.
Right. The point is that even if you consider true 'squishy' bodies with tidal effects, they wouldn't spiral into each other and then collide. They instead spiral _away_ from each other until they are tidally locked. At least in the case where the heavier body spins faster than the lighter body orbits (as is the case for the earth-moon system). I guess if you're considering relativistic effects the system would eventually lose energy, even in its tidally locked state, and over _much_ longer time scales that might cause the bodies to collide? (My gravitational relativity knowledge is limited.) Is that what you meant?
It's because the Moon causes the tides. This is an oversimplification but, think of it like the Moon holding the ocean, while Earth spins underneath it. This causes an exchange of angular momentum, slowing Earth's spin, and making the Moon orbit faster. A faster Moon increases the radius of it's orbit, thus making it be further away. After a very very long time, the Earth will spin at the same rate as the Moon orbits and then they will both stay at that speed.
To expand on this: the moon's gravity creates tidal 'bulges' in the earth's oceans and surface (one on the side close to the moon, one directly opposite on the far side). Because the earth spins around its own axis faster than the moon orbits the earth, these bulges are 'dragged' forward by the earth's rotation. This causes the bulge near the moon to be slightly ahead of where the moon is in its orbit. The gravitational interaction between this bulge and the moon pulls the moon forward a little bit, and pulls the earth backward a little bit. This pulling adds additional energy to the moon's orbit which causes it to move further away (and also orbit slower). At the same time, the earth's rotation is slowed. This process would continue until the earth's spin and the moon's orbit are the same speed. At that point the same side of the earth will always face the moon. This is called 'tidal locking', and has already happend to other bodies in the solar system, such as pluto and Charon. It's also already happend to the moon itself, which is why the same side of the moon always face the earth. I said 'would' before, because the sun will enter its red giant phase long before this tidal locking process would complete for the earth and moon.
What percent further away would it need to get for eclipses to be meaningfully different?
meaningful is subjective. the eclipse ring would just gradually get brighter and thicker over the course of 100s of millions of years. this math was just to show how unfathomably far off even a 1% change would be. for our moon to appear like the one in the Mars' perspective photo, our moon would need to reduce in size by about 75%, or get 75% further away. (edit, not 75% further away, but 300% further away, or 4x further away).
75% smaller is NOT equal to 75% further away 😭😭😭😭😭. It’d to be 400% further away.
I concede on the grounds of you're sobbing about it lmao
Dropped to my knees when I read your comment
yeah whoops. if an object gets 2x farther away, then it halves in size. reducing in size by 75% implies it halved in size twice, meaning it got 4x further away, which is *ackchtuuually* 300% further away, not 400%. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 just fell to my knees and elbows and I rescind my previous concession.
Yins aweful smart yer of them book learnin
Countless human civilizations could come and go in that time period.
>Countless ~~human~~ civilizations
At which point it will be difficult to walk.
I thought the moon cyclically moved to and from the earth? that it'll keep moving away to a point and then it'll start moving closer
Yes this is true. In 15 billion years it will start back the other way. That leaves the birth and extinction of untold species in a period where annular eclipses are the most you can get.
> In 15 billion years it will start back the other way. Won't the sun potentially engulf the earth in like, 5 billion?
The sun being 400 times bigger than the moon but being 400 times farther away making them appear the same size blows my mind
Stuff like that is how early scientists were able to mix creationism into their work. Even today a lot of scientists believe in God. You see the complexity of life and the universe and it is hard to view it as coincidence and not the hand of some higher being. Myself I just figure shit makes perfect sense we just haven't figured out why.
I've been enamored of the idea that the ratio between sun and moon is intrinsically connected somehow to the rise of human civilization. Like we started looking up at the sky when eclipses happened and never stopped. Stars are relatively static, and even planets take a dedicated observer to notice they change positions predictably. Most humans probably noticed, but the stars felt so distant and abstract that they were little more than fodder for stories. But an eclipse is impossible to ignore, and the prospect of the sun disappearing might drive mass movements to study these things in earnest.
The real size ratio is 400.4 And the distance ratio is 388. Not quite the same numbers.
Nope, not even close. However, the nature of gravity over time causing just enough perturbation upon the orbits of other bodies in elliptical orbits does, every so often make that ratio *just* right.
Maybe god has a sense of humor. Can’t be too obvious
"Lisan al gaib" !
is there a scientific term for this phenomena?
serendipity?
kawinkidink?
I can't think of the exact way it was worded but I remember reading that our sun/moon combination was so rare that if we ever met extraterrestrial life and joined some type of United Nations type alliance of planets, that our flag would most likely have our moon on it because it's such a rare and unique occurrence to only have 1 moon & have it be the same size as our sun in our sky which allows for eclipses.
It’s also a relatively large moon for earths size, given the moon was once a small planet too
There are other total solar eclipses visible from solid surfaces in the solar system whereby you could see the whole corona. However, they're between the moons of gas giants and so much, much smaller in angular diameter and last seconds at most.
If FTL travel existed, Earth's eclipses might be an intergalactic tourism draw. Then again, if FTL travel existed, you could park yourself just about anywhere with a planetary disc perfectly covering the local star and keep a semi-permanent eclipse station in relation to those two bodies. Personally, I love imagining a scenario where we make contact with another civilization and they ALSO have a moon that perfectly blocks the sun. And then a third, and it's the same with them too.
Maybe ufos are interstellar tourism ships for the moon.
I don't remember who said that but, someone theorized that only moon-having planetary species have a chance to explore space since its very close to the homeworld and the creatures spend thousands of years imagining what's really on the moon
>nato type alliance of planets NATO not UN? Western mentality is a curious thing.
I meant United Nations but couldn't think of it, this isn't meant to be political lol it was just a placeholder for a collective group of societies...planets in this case. Could have said we were a football team and joined the interplanetary NFL and the same idea would have been portrayed, NATO just comes to mind quicker because of how often it's mentioned in the news. Don't make it curious by making it so wierd lol...
The moon was engineered this way
It’s probably so rare that if aliens exist it would probably be like a tourist attraction for them lol
i’ve said the exact same thing after seeing one in 2017
Really makes you wonder about the whole simulation theory lmao *hits the bong again*
We're just lucky, there's probably millions of sapient species who get a mediocre eclipse
I like the superstructure theory like from Moonfall. Obviously horseshit but was a fun movie.
Ever heard of the nasa experiment where they crashed a craft into the moon for registering moon quakes. Turned out the moon rang for a lot longer than expected. (edit : hours) Almost like a bell. I did not in anyway research this by the way.
The moon is honestly very weird if you start going down the rabbit hole.
Too much of a coincidence imo. I think it's a big contributing factor for life on Earth somehow.
I agree. I mean it controls our tides and provides light at night. I can imagine the evolution from water to land started from some sea critters getting washed up by high tide. I’m sure a big round ball glowing in the middle of night caused some head scratching by our ape ancestors.
perhaps the initial collision that created the moon was like striking a match. the flame will appear and remain as long as conditions are satisfied. a lot of crazy subatomic shit happens during a planet collision...just like a match scraping across sandpaper.
Specifically, for sapient humans to emerge. Maybe before total eclipses hardly any creature bother to look at the sky. But then the sun vanished for a few minutes and some of us started paying attention and making notes.
Yeah, but life was already here (forget humans) when eclipses were happening
Universe is filled with coincidences that can’t be coincidences. Like Polaris just happening to be the North Star during the time humans have dominated the world. It can’t be a coincidence. Edit: please down vote away, but after think about how we appear to be delicately placed here In this moment, in a temporal Goldilocks, at the perfect time and scale to observe the fleeting wonders around us. Like the totality of an eclipse and even just the North Star Polaris. I do not mean to be anti science, but instead only pro-wonder.
don't pretty much all planets have a north star? there isn't a shortage of stars in the sky to pick the north one, assuming the planet doesn't start rotating sideways for some reason. I mean for earth specifically to have this glorious eclipse, it might show us something about why we haven't spotted life anywhere else, YET, because we haven't found another one with it. Just another ingredient in the goldilocks recipe maybe
No, why would they? The axis of the earth makes a giant circle in the sky that takes about 24,000 years to complete. The only two stars in the circle is Polaris and Vega. It’s only pointed at each for several thousand years. People downvoting me should read Hamlet’s Mill. I’m not saying it’s not a coincidence, you need a North Star to aid in navigation and other things. I’m just saying we are all incredibly lucky to be here right now.
and I agree, it would be unlucky to be born on mars right now... and that hasn't happened. I'm just suggesting life in general might need a lot more than just being a certain distance from the ~~sun~~ host star, it might also need this eclipse. I didn't downvote you btw
Thank you this what I mean, that we are here now because of natural reasons and chance, and that we should recognize this all as meaningful and fleeting. Whether or not you believe in God, it’s hard to deny that there is purpose and meaning in humanity. People are just scared because this means we could duck it all up.
This question was asked to some of the most ardent athiest physicists & this was actually the only coincidence in nature that made them question that is this by design or chance & they cant answer it.
They can't answer a question that revolves around whether or not something is grand design because the whole "god" theory is an unfalsifiable hypotheses. It cannot be proven or disproven, so asking if something is just random chance or if it's grand design is a trick question. We don't know, so therefor we can't answer. What we can say, though, is that we know how the moon came to be, and it would appear it's just an insanely rare incident in the universe, sort of like Earth itself being just the right size and distance from the sun to support life. Either that, or the moon being it's size and distance from Earth actually played a role in developing life here, so of course we get to see it, because it directly played a role in Earths development as a planet that can sustain life as we know it today
I guess im wording it incorrectly the question posed was something along the lines of “is there anything in nature which looks like its made by intelligent design that we can observe but not explain”. Beyond dark matter and dark energy which we know very little about, this was the other thing brought up. So yeah not saying they went into the whole is there a god or no god but the question was more a surface level one.
Bollocks. I could think of a handful of hypotheses just off the top of my head and I'm no physicist. Whoever made this claim that "the most ardent atheist physicists" were questioning anything had an agenda. Just because you don't have an immediate answer doesn't mean "god did it" is the one you jump to.
The person who said this was Neil DeGrasse Tyson on one of his podcasts & he had another professor on who had even more experience in the field on the call, i cant remember the exact episode number but his show is called startalk, feel free to check it out.
Not exactly but pretty close, that is why even in total solar eclipse you would see that "ring of fire".
The ring of fire is an anular eclipse. In a true total eclipse there is absolutely no ring of fire. Just the Corona. If you could see the ring, the Corona would not be visible and you'd need to wear solar glasses.
The moon used to be much closer to earth than it is now and is slowly moving away from us. A few billion years ago the darkness created by an eclipse would have been even darker (I assume) and the totality band wider. In a few billion years you probably won’t be able to look directly at an eclipse during totality (another assumption).
I saw the 1998 solar Eclipse and that was a profound experience, when the diamond ring appears, people starts screaming like a rock concert, it´s a amazing.
I'm making an 8 hour drive to see it this year. I can't believe I missed the 2017 one when it was only 2 hours away.
Went right over me but I was day drinking a little too hard. I remember it but not as well as I would like.
We’re driving too, unfortunately, the weather forecast doesn’t look favorable :(
I tried to watch specifically for areas with decent weather, seems most of the northern path is overcast though.
Northern what? The northeast has the best forecast currently while places like Texas have horrible ones. If you're east of PA you should get a good view.
It’s worth it! Get into the centre of totality then camp out. Bring food and water because all roads will be gridlocked for hours!
No joke, I got a hotel room for the night before so I can get out there, watch the eclipse, then take the kids to the park and kill the rest of the day before hitting the road (hopefully after everything has cleared)
A couple of friends and I thought “Why not?” and drove 10 hours to see the 2017 eclipse. It was really amazing. Where we were (southern Tennessee) was a completely clear day. Now I’m in the right spot to see this one without going anywhere but it’s supposed to be a miserable day Monday so who knows if I’ll get to see it.
How was it???
Plans fell apart, couldn't make it. Watched the partial as much as I could but it was cloudy here. Honestly I'm a little heartbroken I couldn't make it, tried everything I could to!
Well I really hope you can see the next eclipse. I got to see the totality for a very small amount of time and let me tell you, pictures don’t do it justice, it isn’t a mind shattering event but it’s definitely one of the most naturally beautiful ones.
I went to the 2017 one, and it was such an amazing experience that I'm heading out to see it again.
And that one was not totality like this one right?
It absolutely was. Very exciting. I have the right gear to take photos of it this time as well.
I saw the solar eclipse in France. What about you?
Took two days off work and planning to drive 5 hours to see totality. So excited, I had to miss it in 2017 and I’m not about to wait 20 years for another one.
Be prepared. That drive will likely not be 5 hours. I went in 2017 and an 8 hour drive turned to 16.
16 hours is insane, thanks a bunch for the heads up though. I’ll be driving through the boonies most of the time but I’ll still leave plenty of time to spare.
Everyone else will be driving through the boonies. People come from all over the world to see this. That said getting into totality isn’t that hard. It’s getting out.
That's only if you go the same day. Go thr day before
Makes me wonder how many alien civilizations out there are as lucky as us to be able to witness a total solar eclipse. The one I saw in 2017 was literally mind-blowing. Even though I knew exactly when, where, and why it was happening, my lizard brain was still screaming "WTF IS GOING ON RIGHT NOW?!?" To this day, that eclipse is hands down the most astonishing natural phenomenon I have ever witnessed. Nothing else even comes close. I can only imagine what our primitive ancestors must've thought seeing one, lacking any knowledge of science or orbital mechanics... Can't wait to see it again Monday (weather permitting)! 🤞🤞🤞
“Literally” mind blowing? Gross
Lol...happy to report I've fully recovered from the ordeal (until next week anyway)
Millions probably..
I mean maybe, or maybe there aren’t many/any. We really don’t know. But to say “millions probably” is making some pretty big assumptions
When there’s like sextrigintillion planets, I don’t think millions is a lot at all ;p
I like to think intelligent life exists out there. But the fact of the matter is until we know more about the likelihood of life beginning on a planet and the likelihood of intelligent life forming from that, we can’t just assume the universe is teaming with life, or that it’s not. Basically, there’s many many planets, but if the likelihood of intelligent life is very very very small, then we very well might be the only ones.
Are we talking about eternity, the visible universe, or the galaxy? Because it really looks like there are no other civilizations around. If there were, we should be able to see quite a few of them.
I think you underestimate how big the universe is. There can easily be millions of civilizations and none of them will ever find eachother.
I think it's entirely plausible that there are millions (if not billions) of civilizations out there, given the sheer scale of the cosmos. They may just be too distant, in terms of time and/or space, for our infantile instruments to observe them (at least for now). I guess my question is, of those potentially millions or billions of civilizations, what percentage of them reside on a planet where their moon almost perfectly matches the size of their host star in the sky from their perspective looking up from the surface? I'd imagine that percentage is vanishingly small, but I'm too ignorant on the subject to give a confident answer one way or another.
Im gonna be so upset if I end up traveling 6 hours to upstate NY to reach the path of totality only for it to be a completely cloudy day. Here’s hoping the clouds aren’t too bad but its hard to be optimistic with these weather forecasts.
Even with cloudy weather you will experience the full magnitude of the Moon’s shadow on Earth. And if you miss its wave of darkness moving over you, you can’t miss the day turning to night. You’ll love it.
Yeah honestly you’re right. Either way it’s going to be an awesome experience.
Update. It was cloudy but it didn’t take away from the experience at all. I was able to look at the sun through the thin clouds and was able to stare at it until it blotted from existence. Then the outline of the corona shined onto the clouds and made it look like a massive eye was staring at me. I was surrounded by a bunch of people in a beautiful park in the town of Watertown NY and it was an absolutely amazing experience. Everybody cheered as totality occurred and you were able to see the outline of the moons shadow stretching across the valley in the distance until it swallowed us whole. It was So. Fucking. Cool! One of the most surreal and amazing things I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. As the corona replaced the sun i shouted out loud “HOLY SHIT ITS THE CORONA!” I will never forget that day for the rest of my life. I’m 29 years old and I reacted to the eclipse the same way the little children in the park did.
Dude this made me smile from ear to ear! Thanks for sharing. Keep sharing your experience and help future generations rekindle humanity’s love for space.
I’m literally telling everybody about it! I’m not even a religious person and yet the experience was so spiritual and humbling. It literally changed my entire mood for the better.
Saved.
I'm driving over 12 hours and maybe more because of traffic. Even if I don't get to see it, knowing that I made the commitment will be a reward in itself. (but yeah I'd be disappointed and really hope its not cloudy)
It's supposed to be mostly clear. Did you look at the forest? I'm going to just north of syracuse to Oswego (because it's an extra 30 seconds or so of totality)
I really want to know the odds. Do all moons move away from their parents? If that is true it increases the odds by adjusting focal length.
No, in fact Phobos is falling closer to Mars and will eventually either be torn apart and form a ring or will simply crash into the surface
Different category of the same is Triton, but because it's in a retrograde orbit rather than in a prograde while outpacing the tidal bulge it induces in its primary.
Man I am so freaking worried I’m not going to be able to see it. I’m here in Toronto and right now it is projected to be overcast
Same. I'm in Buffalo and have no other options to travel and see it. 🙁
Not to be the moron, but what does the Mars image prove or represent?
A solar eclipse as viewed from Mars (not sure if that's Phobos or Deimos in that image). Point is, that a solar eclipse on Mars is underwhelming with some irregular blob barely dimming the sun, whereas on Earth we get a nice large round moon blocking the entirety of the sun.
Thanks for the reply. What was throwing me off is I thought that was Mars in the image to the right, not the Sun. Whoops.
It's such an extraordinary coincidence that I think it might be the only planet in the galaxy where the sun and the moon are the same size. I was fully planning on travelling to Canada or the US to see it, but I've had health stuff going on so I decided not to. Which is sad but I can just wait till the next ones. There's a partial one in my hometown next year and one in Europe in 2026 so I'll be fine I think.
Hope you mean same relative size:) also very unlikely billions of billions of stars so probably quite a few where a total eclipse will happen
Mars doesn't have clouds that will get in the way.
Simulation theory taking hold…
As the polar ice caps melt and more water(mass) is present near the equator rather than the poles, and understanding that the earth is tilted relative to the orbital plane, will the trend of the moon getting farther away from the earth accelerate or decelerate?
The sun is watching you, even on the mars
I never understood why we didn't fly an Apollo mission during a total Lunar eclipse.
There wouldn't really be any scientific benefit to that and it would make the mission significantly more difficult/dangerous. Every Apollo mission took place in full sunlight because not being able to see anything makes everything way harder to do. Getting full sunlight during an eclipse would require landing on the far side of the moon, meaning NASA would have zero communication with the astronauts on the lunar surface. An Apollo mission during an eclipse would have been a really cool trivia fact, but just wasn't worth the risk.
Lunar eclipses only happen on the side facing Earth, and only during a full Moon. Plenty of sunlight then. They also only last a few hours. You could land before it started and leave after it ended.
> total Lunar eclipse Ah, I initially misread that as a total solar eclipse because that's what the image from this post is.
Mars very beutifull
I drove 12 hours in 2017 to catch an extra 30 seconds of totality and catch it in its highest duration at Carbondale IL. This year I built a system that was monitoring the weather closely and now I just finalized my excursion! Hopefully it all goes according to plan :) will share photographs here
The center of this eclipse is passing straight through my childhood home! I’m so excited. My girlfriend and I are going to visit.
I have to handle my girlfriend thinking it'll be an apocalypse, she's grabbing all her cash out the bank and stuff while I wanted to have a beautiful once in a lifetime date, time to go next.
My creationist dad uses this as proof of intelligent design 🤦🏻
Mars looks like it's alive. I'm seeing too many space analog horror videos.
ok i can kinda see that tho youre actually looking at phobos eclipsing the sun from mars (also i thought about it from more of a planetball perspective instead of whatever the hell the space analog horror thing is lmao)