The solar eclipse

[Undesired Walrus]

I'm curious as to why this spectacular event is never attributed more as 'evidence' for a designer.

It's quite amazing, and the only event that used to convince me of a God behind this movement. I gradually went off this idea around 15 as I realised you cannot look up at it without damaging your eyes, it is frequently covered by the clouds and can be explained by science. If a God intended it to be for us to look at and rejoice in, that is some crummy design.

But I often wonder, is it really that unusual? It seems, to me, to be a remarkable coincidence, but I wonder if it just seems that way to a layman.

If I were a religous person, I'd be convinced. As an Atheist, I am amazed. But in the darker moments of my life (pun intended) I could see how I could be convinced by this event alone.

[latent aaaack]

It is a really weird coincidence but to primitive man it wouldn't seem much less spectacular than a much apparently bigger moon eclipsing the sun. If the moon were much apparently bigger than the sun you could still see the sun's atmosphere at certain times of the eclipse and would still look like the sun disappearing.

Anyone have any idea of the actual chances of a planet's only moon being the same apparent size as the sun?

[A Christian Sceptic]

It is a really weird coincidence but to primitive man it wouldn't seem much less spectacular than a much apparently bigger moon eclipsing the sun. If the moon were much apparently bigger than the sun you could still see the sun's atmosphere at certain times of the eclipse and would still look like the sun disappearing.

Anyone have any idea of the actual chances of a planet's only moon being the same apparent size as the sun?

My Astronomy teacher at the state community college I attended said that as far as the scientists know (so far) earth is the only planet where you can experience it where the moon and sun appear the same size. The rest of the planets moons would be too small or too big or the sun would be too small or too big - they do eclipse but not like what's observed from earth. She emphasized that we should appreciate the gift we've been given since it's so rare and unique (as far as we know in our solar system).

[ImaginalDisc]

My Astronomy teacher at the state community college I attended said that as far as the scientists know (so far) earth is the only planet where you can experience it where the moon and sun appear the same size. The rest of the planets moons would be too small or too big or the sun would be too small or too big - they do eclipse but not like what's observed from earth. She emphasized that we should appreciate the gift we've been given since it's so rare and unique (as far as we know in our solar system).

Huzzah, we happen to have just the conditions for solar and lunar eclipses. But, we don't get to see a double sun in orbit of Alpha Centauri, the play of minute micrometorites in the clouds of Titan, and we don't get to hear the hollow, racing howl of the thin but scouring winds of Jupiter.

The universe is filled with astronimical oddities and spectacular experiences much farther from home than our local star and moon. That we happen to have one nearby is fascinating, but of no consquence.

[bokonon]

My Astronomy teacher at the state community college I attended said that as far as the scientists know (so far) earth is the only planet where you can experience it where the moon and sun appear the same size. The rest of the planets moons would be too small or too big or the sun would be too small or too big - they do eclipse but not like what's observed from earth. She emphasized that we should appreciate the gift we've been given since it's so rare and unique (as far as we know in our solar system).
My understanding is that our moon itself is a rare thing, caused by an ancient collision between an ancient smaller-than-present-day-earth and a planet the size of Mars. The fact that it's currently almost the same apparent size as the sun is a result of that unlikely accident, and the accident of the time we live in. When it was first formed, the moon was much closer to the earth than it is today, and solar eclipses would have been more common and more widespread, but wouldn't have provided the show of one just-so disk covering another. Many years in the future, the moon will be even further away from earth than it is today, and all solar eclipses will be annular or partial.

I suppose it might be a compelling argument from design to those who are already predisposed to accept the conclusion without requiring facts anyway. It seems to me a more compelling argument for coincidence, considering all the planets which do not exhibit the "just so" characteristics. It isn't as though Detroit cranks out one car with built-in GPS and ABS braking along with four billion non-running lumps of metal and rubber. Yes, we are incredibly lucky that there is a water-rich planet with a large single moon orbiting a medium-sized star at a "Goldilocks" radius, where tectonic forces keep a certain amount of dry land available for billennia, etc. On the other hand, just look at all the similarly "designed" bloboids which weren't so lucky. If god had a hand in it, it was apparently quite the cosmic crap shoot.

[alfaniner]

Ever since I started noticing it, I have been aware of the many times that an airplane shadow goes directly over me. Living on the outskirts of a fairly large city, but not "near" the airport, it seems that this should be a much rarer occurrence than it happens. Maybe 2-3x a year.

[Undesired Walrus]

Many years in the future, the moon will be even further away from earth than it is today, and all solar eclipses will be annular or partial.


Yes, never thought about that before. What is it, 2cm a year?

Is there any way of finding out when it started to cover the sun, one disk on one?

I suppose, therefore, we must be thankful we are in this unique point in the evolution of our solar system. It's a bit like how we are incredibly lucky to exist in a time when Saturn has rings. They are only about 100 million years old in the planets' four billion year history.

The Universe is very good looking, but we tend to ignore things such as the Andromeda Galaxies collision course with the Milky Way in 10 Billion years or so, most likely destroying both.

[Undesired Walrus]

It is a really weird coincidence but to primitive man it wouldn't seem much less spectacular than a much apparently bigger moon eclipsing the sun. If the moon were much apparently bigger than the sun you could still see the sun's atmosphere at certain times of the eclipse and would still look like the sun disappearing.


You are right.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Saturn_eclipse.jpg

Actual picture. It's cool.

[grayman]

Ever since I started noticing it, I have been aware of the many times that an airplane shadow goes directly over me. Living on the outskirts of a fairly large city, but not "near" the airport, it seems that this should be a much rarer occurrence than it happens. Maybe 2-3x a year.


It may be the type of approach in use at the airport for the aircraft.

Information here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_approach).

[Digital Shadow]

My understanding is that we know of VERY few extrasolar planets and the ones we do know of were fairly recently discovered and only inferred by observing the minute shift of a star as the gravity from orbiting plants tugs on it. We simply can't observe extraplanets very easily because the intense light from the star they are orbiting makes them nearly impossible to observe directly. So I don't think we have much information to compare to our planet and say how common or rare our situation is.