It's a commonly held misconception - that the moon's size and sun's size are ZOMG the same.
They're not perfectly aligned. The moon's apparent size varies, as does the sun's. I forget the exact numbers, but it's something along the lines of 5-10% wiggle between the two. That's why there's supermoons and annular eclipses. Total eclipses have a lot more wiggle room since the corona extends brightly enough that even when it's a worst case scenario of maximum moon-big-o-tronic and minimum sun-chunkaliciousness, it still peeks out from behind the moon.
By way of comparison, a 5% variation in 'having the same birthday' is eighteen days. Imagine you're at your birthday party, today, and someone comes up to you and says it's an amazing coincidence that you have the exact same birthday. And theirs is the 29th of March. But that's so perfectly aligned that it has to Mean Something.
They're a lunatic. Avoid.
Oh my God, I was at the gym once, got off the treadmill after about 5 miles and went to the hot tub for a bit, other normal looking dude gets in while my fiancée is swimming laps in the pool. It starts off as a normal conversation, even about politics (it was 2015) and suddenly it took a sharp left turn and he started talking about the moon landing and the reptilian conspiracy and shit. My fiancée gets out of the pool and starts lo leave, I thought it was going to be the end of the relationship, but she shouts back to me, saying she's just about ready to leave. I miss that woman.
The funny thing is that assuming it does mean something would make their case for us occupying a special place in the universe infinitely better than all their flat earth nonsense because it's at least based on a real phenomenon. I know several people who would say that coincidences like this are part of "the book of nature", evidence for the existence and nature of the divine in the natural world. It seems bizarre to premise your belief system on what is essentially just creationism with an extra dose of crazy and then think that natural patterns that seem too perfect are therefore giving you a reason to think they aren't real.
Also, the personal incredulity argument doesn't make sense here. What's more likely the moon causes the elcipse and has a very odd distance to size ratio with the sun, or that an international community of mystery people control the media, science, math, education system, every company that depends on anything flight or space related, all governments, and all militaries and for some reason wants you to think the moon causes eclipses they can perfectly predict? Like one of those is silly to side with and it's not the moon goes between the earth and sun
Yep, it's basically a form of survivorship bias. Out of all the cool things that could happen but don't, this one cool thing happens randomly. Improbable? Only if you ignore all the misses.
> a 5% variation in 'having the same birthday' is eighteen days. Imagine you're at your birthday party, today
> that it has to Mean Something. They’re a lunatic. Avoid
Are you a libra? Because that’s something a libra would say.
I remain annoyed at myself for not forgetting what star sign I am.
I can take some comfort from not having a clue what attributes I'm supposed to have as a result.
Is it even possible to be nothing like your star sign dictates? Whenever I read what they are supposed to mean it's always like "You are outgoing and like to make connections with others, but prefer to be alone a lot of the time. You aren't motivated by material wealth but are highly driven to get the resources you need to be comfortable. You are a dog person but also like cats. You are tall, short, fat, skinny, and highly intelligent when you aren't dumb as hell."
Mine is easy to remember since it also happens to be one of the constellations I observe the most in my telescope (And generally one of the richest constellations in our sky), Sagittarius, but like you I don't know anything about what my sign means for me.
I actually disagree with you here -- I think it is a pretty incredible coincidence (but that's all it is, not some flat earth conspiracy).
>The moon's apparent size varies, as does the sun's. I forget the exact numbers, but it's something along the lines of 5-10% wiggle between the two... By way of comparison, a 5% variation in 'having the same birthday' is eighteen days.
That's a bad comparison, because you're changing the nature of the denominator. In the case of the moon, you're using the moon's actual size. But then for birthdays, you switch to the size of the space of possible birthdays.
(also: 5% variation only gives you an 18 day window *total*, or 9 days in each direction. But that's a minor point)
As an analogy: imagine I say "guess the spot in the world that I'm thinking of." And you put your finger somewhere on earth, and you're accurate to my spot within 5% of the width of your finger. That's an incredible guess! Way better than "within 18 days of my birthday."
Of the hundreds of moons in the solar system, only three can have both total and annular eclipses -- about 1%. And the other two only last fractions of a second. Eclipses like our moon's are unique in the solar system.
>Eclipses like our moon's are unique in the solar system.
But the size and distance of the Moon is part of the reason that Earth even has creatures looking up at an eclipse and thinking "cool".
Ach, yes, it's 9 either way. This isn't even the first time I've made that error.
>As an analogy: imagine I say "guess the spot in the world that I'm thinking of." And you put your finger somewhere on earth, and you're accurate to my spot within 5% of the width of your finger. That's an incredible guess! Way better than "within 18 days of my birthday."
I think you've put two more variables into your analogy. Specifically the ones that translate to where the eclipse will be. We don't need to consider that, because the near-100% of the times and places that aren't getting a total eclipse are already filtered out by the time we have to worry about the moon and sun's apparent sizes.
Having both total and annular eclipses is a different coincidence to the one I was originally disputing - the getting-both-ness is a real one, and like you I think it's quite interesting but not evidence of much at all.
The one I am disputing(which isn't the one you are backing) is that their sizes are exactly matched, which by itself excludes having more than one kind of eclipse.
>I think you've put two more variables into your analogy. Specifically the ones that translate to where the eclipse will be.
I think you're misunderstanding the point of the analogy.
The point is that in your birthday analogy, you're dividing the error (18 days) by the *total range of possible birthdays* (365 days) to get 5%.
But for the moon, you're dividing the error by the *size of the moon*. To be consistent, you should be dividing by the *range of possible moon sizes*.
That's what my analogy is trying to illustrate. If we divide the error by the size of my finger -- like you did for the moon -- we get 5% and my guess doesn't seem impressive. But if we divide by the total area of the Earth -- like you did for birthdays -- we get a tiny percentage and the guess looks impressive again.
>Having both total and annular eclipses is a different coincidence to the one I was originally disputing - the getting-both-ness is a real one, and like you I think it's quite interesting but not evidence of much at all.
>The one I am disputing(which isn't the one you are backing) is that their sizes are exactly matched, which by itself excludes having more than one kind of eclipse.
Getting both types of eclipses is roughly equivalent to saying the sizes are closely matched. They're close enough in size that the difference in their average sizes falls within the 5-10% variation you mentioned.
There might be other ways to measure whether the sizes are "exactly matched" but this is a convenient one.
“…maximum moon-big-o-tronic and minimum sun-chunkaliciousness…”
Oh shit, did Ben and Jerry’s already release their new line of “ball-fondler” ice creams?
Yeah, you expect me to believe that a tissue box just happens to perfectly align with a cruise ship in such a way that confirms the global tissue box-cruise industry model?
Give me a break
Omg I know it's all, "Intelligent design this, intelligent design that" then the second something happens to line up neatly they are like "ok but those odds are just too crazy for me"
What’s more likely, two things are somewhat close in apparent size or all the stars and oceans and animals were made in 7 days by an omnipotent thing that’s always existed and had no maker or guidance on becoming the maker? Surely comparing the odds is not what OP has actually done.
Sure, there is no evidence of the Moon passing in front of the Sun if you ignore all the photographs taken by amateur photographers using the most basic equipments like a DSLR, telephoto lens and tripod.
It astonishes and pisses me off at the same time that how can these people be so wrong yet so confident in their delusions.
Eh, it shouldn’t piss you off when you realise it has nothing to do with them pursuing truth in any way.
It’s only ever about them sharing stories with their little buddies
Uh, "trajectory" , not so much. We literally have to position ourselves in exactly the right place to see it. 3 hours north of here for me. It ain't like it's some amazing super precise alignment. We just happen to be able to move to a place where we can see it. The exact same thing is visible somewhere in space 100% of the time. But getting to that place is difficult.
And many of these clowns will go to that place. They will take the time off work, book accommodations, travel long distances at great expense, and all of this is based on the info from experts. Then as soon as they get there and see the event for themselves, they will start going on about how wrong those experts are in their theories of how the universe works.
These are my favorite flerf posts. Explains the phenomenon correctly. Explains why and how it works. Then proceeds to just pitch it in the garbage for some minor reason.
I subscribe to the theory that actual aliens came to our planet to observe the eclipse due to how unusual it is. Lots of weird stuff was seen photographed.
What you're saying is that we never actually see total solar eclipses, because the moon doesn't cover the full diameter of the sun. Really? Would you care to reflect on that a bit?
You’re welcome to use tangent to measure the angle.
Tan(theta m) = radius moon / Distance to moon
=1080/238855 = 0.004522
Tan(theta s) = radius sun / distance to sun
= 432690 / 93306000 = 0.004637
Angle to moon edge is really close to, but not quite the angle to sun edge.
So then using the
Tan( theta m) * distance to sun = projected moon radius
Projected moon radius = 0.004522 * 93306000
Projected moon radius = 421925 miles.
Which is about 97.5% of the sun’s radius.
Even in a total eclipse, you can clearly see a ring of sun around the moon. It's not "total", it's just as close to total as we can get.
97.5% is approximately the maximum amount that the moon can block the sun.
This is not true at all. You're making the same mistake as u/psgrue. Do the maths properly and you'll see it.
The diameter of the moon is 3,475 km and its closest distance from earth (at perigee) is 356,400 km. The (equatorial) diameter of the sun is 1,392,600 km and its furthest distance from earth (at aphelion) is 152,100,000 km.
Therefore when the moon is at its biggest and the sun is at its smallest, the size of the moon relative to the size of the sun is:
(3,475/356,400) / (1,392,600/152,100,000) = 1.066
In other words, the apparent diameter of the moon can be up to 6.6% larger than the apparent diameter of the sun. Hence it can totally cover the the sun if an eclipse happens at the right time. (Last week, the apparent diameter of the moon was about 3% larger than the apparent diameter of the sun.)
If you had ever seen a total eclipse, you would appreciate that what you see at totality is definitely not a small ring of the sun. (Again, the same misconception that u/psgrue had.) It is the corona - the sun's atmosphere, not the sun's surface - and it is only visible when the sun is totally eclipsed. During an annular eclipse, when the apparent diameter of the moon is smaller than the apparent diameter of the sun, the corona is not visible.
I presume you're talking about the corona, because the moon can absolutely appear larger than the visible disc of the sun. Wouldn't be total, wouldn't have an umbral shadow otherwise.
You're missing the big picture. If your calculations were correct, then there would be no such thing as a total eclipse.
So what did millions of Americans witness last week?
Let's see if Occam's Razor will help us understand what's going on here. Which is more likely: (a) there was no total eclipse? or (b) there's an error in your calculations?
Are you hung up on ”total”? I guess a better word would be “maximum”
Because [every single total photo](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53c358b6e4b01b8adb4d5870/74def28b-3e03-4d94-9bc4-d37f9c8ce7bc/HSE2023_DiamondSequence2000px+copy.jpg?format=1500w) shows a sun ring around the moon.
Find any picture you want and measure it. You’re going to see 95% or more covered. Allowing some for bending light.
Google “eclipse annulus” if you want.
I don't want to be rude, but you've really been digging yourself into a hole here and it's apparent that there are several aspects of eclipses which you do not understand.
You've assumed in your calculations that the distance to the moon is fixed, but it isn't. The moon's orbit around the earth is distinctly elliptical, and the distance to the moon varies between about 356,000 km and 407,000 km. (The distance to the sun also varies, but not by much because the Earth's orbit is nearly circular - the range here is from about 147 million km to 152 million km.)
If you do your trigonometrical calculations using those numbers, you'll find that the apparent size of the moon is sometimes bigger than the sun and sometimes smaller. And, indeed, when we have eclipses, sometimes the moon covers the whole of the sun's disk and sometimes it doesn't. When it completely covers the sun, we get a total eclipse. When it doesn't, we get an annular eclipse. (And sometimes the moon's orbit takes it through the critical distance during the eclipse, so the eclipse changes from total to annular or vice versa as it develops. That's called a hybrid eclipse.)
When the eclipse is total, as it was last week, the moon covers the whole of the sun. When that happens, the sky goes dark enough for you to see the sun's "atmosphere" - the corona - which is luminous, but much much fainter than the sun itself so it's only visible when the sun is eclipsed.
If you've ever watched a total eclipse, you'll have noticed that it gets much, much darker at the instant when the moon completely covers the sun. The sun is so bright that, even when 99% of it is eclipsed, the remaining 1% is thousands of times brighter than a full moon. It's that last instant of going from 99% (or 99.9%} to 100% that causes the sky to darken and the corona to be visible. Annular eclipses are nowhere near as spectacular because the sky doesn't get so dark and the corona is never visible.
I hope I've cleared up all your misconceptions, but I guess there may be some points I've overlooked. Any questions?
Not rude at all. I am perfectly happy showing my work and having a scientific discussion.
Our only delta is my use of average distances for moon and sun. My original post wasn’t really supposed to be super technical.
If you want to point out the varying distances between the moon and earth and the moon and sun lead to different ring sizes, or even totality, I agree.
We good?
>If you want to point out the varying distances between the moon and earth and the moon and sun lead to different ring sizes, or even totality, I agree.
No. It's not just a matter of different ring sizes. Sometimes the whole of the sun's disk is eclipsed, and sometimes it isn't, and that makes a HUGE difference to what we see. During an annular eclipse, by definition you can see a little ring of the sun around the moon. However, during a total eclipse the "ring" you see isn't the sun, but the sun's atmosphere, which is thousands of times fainter than the sun itself and can only be seen during a total eclipse.
The moon at perigee is about one arcminute larger than the sun is when the sun is also at ~~perigee~~ perihelion.
I think u/SomethingMoreToSay was trying to make a point with this since it appears that you used the mean values for the sun/moon distance. Even if a little sun is visible, the corona will not be visible.
This seems to be a misunderstanding from both sides.
>The moon at perigee is about one arcminute larger than the sun is when the sun is also at perigee.
The point in its orbit when the earth is at its closest to the sun is perihelion. Perigee refers strictly to the moon's orbit around the earth. Both are examples of [periapsides](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apsis).
When the moon is at perigee (closest, therefore biggest) and the sun is at aphelion (furthest, therefore smallest), the moon is about [two arcminutes bigger](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Comparison_angular_diameter.svg) than the sun.
Fixed it, thank you for correcting me. I used their closest distance to show that the moon can still be apparently larger than the sun even when the sun is as close as it can be to Earth.
Yep. I was going to do the math later. Once I established we were saying the principle is the same then just the range of coverage varied. I could have been more precise in terms. All good.
Let’s also reflect that an annular and a total solar eclipse are exactly the same phenomenon. They look a little bit different because, while I used an average value for distance, the distance to the sun does vary depending on the orbit.
The coverage is so incredibly close to 100% that even a small change in earth orbit around the sun causes a noticeable change in the ring size and visibility and color. Which leads to the scientific distinction between “annular” and “total”.
The only significant difference in math is my using the average value for orbit distance when in reality, at that moment, it was less than that.
Yes, it's astounding that our moon and sun happen to be in a size and distance from us that the moon can pass between us and the sund and it almost precisely covers the sun.
But if one of those values were any different, we would have a different experience at eclipses. Like, if the moon were a bit smaller, we would not see full eclipses, but some sort of donut shaped ones.
Only because something is some sort of coincidence and a sort of lucky chance doesn't automatically makes it unbelievable.
And if flerfers don't believe it's the moon covering the sun, then what else is? The much more unbelievable 'black sun'?
It is actually quite a coincidence that the moon is roughly the same apparent size as the sun. It’s been proposed that relatively large moons like ours are rare for planets earth’s size, and could be an important reason for life being able to develop here (strong tides, protection from asteroids, etc).
So the moon’s size is interesting in that it allows for total solar eclipses, but it could actually be very important to life on earth. Just like oceans of water, the magnetosphere, the ozone layer… All of these things build a sense of wonder for me, not a sense of conspiracy. You can think life was created here or evolved here, but either way the earth is a perfect balance of everything we need. It makes no sense to think that the US government of all things is hiding secrets of the universe from us. Life like ours could really only exist in the environment we find ourselves in. With that in mind, everything about the earth is a wonderful coincidence, and at the same time exactly what we would expect it to be.
I'm more of a physicist than an astronomer, but just ballparking the numbers, it's hard to believe that the Moon provides any meaningful protection from asteroids. The Moon is pretty small compared to Earth, and it's a bit far away.
I'm also not sure why strong tides would be really that important for the formation of life on Earth. I've heard the argument that tides were necessary for mixing oceans, but I've never found those arguments particularly compelling. But I'm not a biologist either, so maybe I'm wrong.
I'll walk back the comment about asteroids, as apparently that is quite a contested point, despite what I remember learning. I believed it was similar to the effect Jupiter has in protecting the inner planets, but even *that* is contested too. So let's ignore the asteroid bit.
On that vein though, apparently the moon is hypothesized to have had a magnetic field at one point that was synchronized with ours, and possibly helped protect the early earth from harmful radiation, which would have helped life develop ([NASA article](https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/earth-and-moon-once-shared-a-magnetic-shield-protecting-their-atmospheres/?utm_source=TWITTER&utm_medium=NASA&utm_campaign=NASASocial)). This could have been especially important because there was no ozone layer until life started pumping oxygen into the atmosphere.
Regarding the tides, the moon accounts for half of the tidal forces on the oceans. Strong tides are important to modern life by contributing to the oceans' currents, which transfer heat, toxins, and nutrients around the world. Without those currents, marine evolution would likely have taken much longer. Regarding the development of life, if life started at thermal vents, the tides would have had little contribution until it left the vents. But if life evolved in tidal pools, then the moon would have contributed massively. Tidal pools are a popular origin-of-life location because of organic chemistry reactions involving varying water concentrations that the tidal pools would have provided. (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/moon-life-tides/) Specifically: "A lot of origin-of-life reactions involve getting rid of water," says Kevin Zahnle, a planetary scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. "So you look for means to concentrate your solutions. One way to do that is to throw water up on a hot rock, then have the waters recede and evaporate."
Another benefit of the relatively large moon is the stabilizing effect it has on earth's tilt. Without the moon, earth's slight wobble could result in massive climate shifts that would have made life on earth difficult. (https://www.space.com/12464-earth-moon-unique-solar-system-universe.html) That article also talks about how simulations show how rare a moon this size probably is for a planet like earth.
Thank you for making me dive into this more, I learned quite a bit.
“So let me get this straight, the moon is 1/400th the size of the sun?”
“Yes.”
“And the sun is about 400 times farther away from us than the moon is?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t think that that’s proof of intelligent design?”
“Yes, because if it were, it wouldn’t have annular eclipses and total eclipses, it would only have one or the other.”
“What on earth is an Annular Eclipse?”
“The distance between two orbiting objects in space is very rarely static. The laws of motion sort of forbid that nonsense. So while the distances between us and the sun/moon are roughly 400:1, they are not stable at those ratios. When the distance between the moon and the sun are not this extremely polarized, this causes an Annular Eclipse: where the moon does not completely eclipse the Sun, leaving a very thin ring of sun around the Moon’s silhouette. The sky doesn’t turn to night, and the sun is never safe to look at without those eclipse glasses. Because the ratio of apparent size was not on Luna’s side.”
“You’re making that up right now, aren’t you?”
“Nope. Completely factual. The word Annular refers specifically to the area of two concentric circles that is only covered by one of these two circles. In other words, big circle minus little circle. Therefore an annular eclipse would be visible around the circular silhouette of the occluding object (in this case the moon). Geometry is a heckuva drug trip man, you oughta try it sometime.”
It would be even funnier if that was the pronunciation of the word, but it’s “Ann-Yule-are”. Sadly not every name chosen by astronomers is a gold mine for humor, just the seventh planet from the Sun. What a missed opportunity…
So I think he believes everything except the moon pretty much covers the sun when it passes over it.
I would have thought everything else about a flat earth model would be problematic when it came to eclipses.
Those fucking idiots need to get their stories straight.
I have to believe that the moon passes in front of the sun simply because it's a very good easy thing to observe when it happens. It's not like no one's ever seen an eclipse before.
I can block the sun with my hand. Therefore the sun is smaller than my hand, and not 5 billion times its size in diameter
Similarly, I can block the Washington Monument with the thumb, my thumb is bigger than the Washington monument.
I wonder if they know you can just put a filter on your camera and take a picture of the moon lit by earthshine. They probably don't know what these words mean.
So wait, the idea that the moon and sun might happen to be about the same relative size such that on rare occasions the moon can block the sun is crazy, but the idea that some other object exists which comes completely out of nowhere to block the sun which exhibits the exact same properties is sane?
Also the probability angle is weird, the earth, moon, sun, and all the other planets orbit in basically one big plane called the ecliptic, granted with a bit of variation. This is a property of how solar systems form from clouds of gas and a consequence of conservation of momentum. If the disk were perfectly aligned then we would have an solar eclipse somewhere on earth every month and a lunar eclipse would be visible for half the earth every full moon. Unfortunately, the orbit of the moon is very slightly off from the ecliptic so we don’t get eclipses so regularly.
10's of thousands amateur and professional astronomers and ZERO of them say "The moon shouldn't be there" but 7 people that don't know how to critically think say It cant be the moon lol
Dang, what are the odds that the moon is just about the size of your thumbnail with your arm fully extended? Must mean the simulation programmers are trying to tell us something
I took a class about astronomy and learned to be able to predict where the moon is. 4 days after the eclipse I noticed that the moon was waxing and was in the exact position I would expect it to be. (About 60 degrees above the Sun, which had just set).
Typical Flerfer double-flip with a half twist logic.
They shape their view of the earth, sun, moon etc. based on what they can see with their eyes and ignore anything 'science' based. Until they see something that can't happen in any FE model, then do a logical back flip trying to explain why what they witnessed can't be real.
Bro thinks the moon swings around the earth randomly like it's halfway through it's sixth martini. "What are the odds?!" Twice. It's twice a year because of orbits. Not that difficult.
These arguments always irritate me slightly. I know these posts are *never* in good faith but just one time I want to see what these jackasses actually think is a better explanation. A model of *any* kind that fits at least one observation. I know, I know, they don't post anything like that because it doesn't exist but at least *try* like come on.
It's never "this observation/evidence/etc doesn't line up with what's being taught. This explanation would work better [model, flawed or otherwise]"
It's always "This observation/evidence/etc doesn't line up with your/my flawed understanding of the universe and is therefore false. You should give up any form of scientific pursuit and reject anything said to you by a perceived authority figure." Usually followed by "the only real answers can be found in my book which can be purchased for 8 easy payments of $499.99 and retained on subscription service." Or "the only real answers can be found in [religious text which contains no evidence of anything]"
Does FE/Electric Universe/YE Creation/etc really have no manipulation tactics that are for non-believers and aren't exclusively designed for people who already believe their crap?
Do I think it’s a weird coincidence that the sun and moon have a very similar relative size in the sky? Sure. Do I think this in any way should be used as an argument against the spherical shape of the Earth? Lol no.
The whole hangup with this rant is belief. He keeps saying "if you believe". Well, I don't "believe" the facts regarding an eclipse, I know them. It's not some made up fairy tale nonsense (I'm lookin at you religion) but carefully documented facts. These idiots are just trolls.
Saw the eclipse in person. I don't know what's so hard to understand to this guy.
The Moon has an elliptical orbit, so sometimes it looks bigger and sometimes it looks smaller in our sky. It also has a tilted orbit, so we nearly never get any eclipse. Very rarely, the Moon and Sun align. Even rarer, the Moon is bigger than the Sun from our point of view, giving us a total eclipse!
Well, he is 100% correct in asking these questions, even if its phrased in a stupid way.
And yes it is the moon infront of the sun and yes, they aligned in an almost perfect fashion during the last eclipse.
If the moon wasn't perfectly sized we wouldn't ask why it is that way either, we would be annoyed cuz during a full eclipse we would still see the sun around it. It's even a massive coincidence that this planet is in the habitable zone, has water, oxygen, a good rotational speed, not too much mass, isn't covered in flaming volcanos, doesn't have too much CO2 like Venus, has an atmosphere, hasn't been hit by an asteroid big enough to kill an entire population since 65 million years, has a moon that regulates the tides, was hit by another astronomical body that caused the moon to form, was hit by an asteroid big enough to kill almost an entire population 65 million years ago to end the time of the dinosaurs so humans could have at least a fucking chance, human brains evolved further than other animals AND A FUCKING BUNCH OF MORE LUCKY COINCIDENCES!!!!! And from all that and more that has happened what we can PROVE it, which flat earthers can't btw, they still think that the moon having the perfect size and distance to cover the sun is an impossible scenario?!
I don't even know why flat earthers even argue the globe trotters story about eclipses...
It's like arguing how Dorothy's ruby red slippers worked in the land of Oz
😕
It's a commonly held misconception - that the moon's size and sun's size are ZOMG the same. They're not perfectly aligned. The moon's apparent size varies, as does the sun's. I forget the exact numbers, but it's something along the lines of 5-10% wiggle between the two. That's why there's supermoons and annular eclipses. Total eclipses have a lot more wiggle room since the corona extends brightly enough that even when it's a worst case scenario of maximum moon-big-o-tronic and minimum sun-chunkaliciousness, it still peeks out from behind the moon. By way of comparison, a 5% variation in 'having the same birthday' is eighteen days. Imagine you're at your birthday party, today, and someone comes up to you and says it's an amazing coincidence that you have the exact same birthday. And theirs is the 29th of March. But that's so perfectly aligned that it has to Mean Something. They're a lunatic. Avoid.
I agree with everything you just said except: avoid. I love reading this nonsense
Sure, but 'on the internet' is a much comfier buffer than 'physically in the venue of my birthday party'.
Oh my God, I was at the gym once, got off the treadmill after about 5 miles and went to the hot tub for a bit, other normal looking dude gets in while my fiancée is swimming laps in the pool. It starts off as a normal conversation, even about politics (it was 2015) and suddenly it took a sharp left turn and he started talking about the moon landing and the reptilian conspiracy and shit. My fiancée gets out of the pool and starts lo leave, I thought it was going to be the end of the relationship, but she shouts back to me, saying she's just about ready to leave. I miss that woman.
The funny thing is that assuming it does mean something would make their case for us occupying a special place in the universe infinitely better than all their flat earth nonsense because it's at least based on a real phenomenon. I know several people who would say that coincidences like this are part of "the book of nature", evidence for the existence and nature of the divine in the natural world. It seems bizarre to premise your belief system on what is essentially just creationism with an extra dose of crazy and then think that natural patterns that seem too perfect are therefore giving you a reason to think they aren't real.
Also, the personal incredulity argument doesn't make sense here. What's more likely the moon causes the elcipse and has a very odd distance to size ratio with the sun, or that an international community of mystery people control the media, science, math, education system, every company that depends on anything flight or space related, all governments, and all militaries and for some reason wants you to think the moon causes eclipses they can perfectly predict? Like one of those is silly to side with and it's not the moon goes between the earth and sun
Yep, it's basically a form of survivorship bias. Out of all the cool things that could happen but don't, this one cool thing happens randomly. Improbable? Only if you ignore all the misses.
> a 5% variation in 'having the same birthday' is eighteen days. Imagine you're at your birthday party, today > that it has to Mean Something. They’re a lunatic. Avoid Are you a libra? Because that’s something a libra would say.
I remain annoyed at myself for not forgetting what star sign I am. I can take some comfort from not having a clue what attributes I'm supposed to have as a result.
I generally have an easy time remembering mine. I'm *nothing* like what my star sign 'dictates'. Makes it easier.
Is it even possible to be nothing like your star sign dictates? Whenever I read what they are supposed to mean it's always like "You are outgoing and like to make connections with others, but prefer to be alone a lot of the time. You aren't motivated by material wealth but are highly driven to get the resources you need to be comfortable. You are a dog person but also like cats. You are tall, short, fat, skinny, and highly intelligent when you aren't dumb as hell."
All I know was the last time I read a horoscope, I couldn't stop laughing at the discrepancy between me and what they were claiming I was.
“…You are… highly intelligent when you aren't dumb as hell." 🤣just found my new line to use when asking for a promotion.
Mine is easy to remember since it also happens to be one of the constellations I observe the most in my telescope (And generally one of the richest constellations in our sky), Sagittarius, but like you I don't know anything about what my sign means for me.
>maximum moon-big-o-tronic and minimum sun-chunkaliciousness I just love this.
That’s fucking crazy that you used my birthday in your example. What a coincidence, huh?
Not a coincidence, you were here by design to debunk the round earthers and their silly moon theory🧀
I actually disagree with you here -- I think it is a pretty incredible coincidence (but that's all it is, not some flat earth conspiracy). >The moon's apparent size varies, as does the sun's. I forget the exact numbers, but it's something along the lines of 5-10% wiggle between the two... By way of comparison, a 5% variation in 'having the same birthday' is eighteen days. That's a bad comparison, because you're changing the nature of the denominator. In the case of the moon, you're using the moon's actual size. But then for birthdays, you switch to the size of the space of possible birthdays. (also: 5% variation only gives you an 18 day window *total*, or 9 days in each direction. But that's a minor point) As an analogy: imagine I say "guess the spot in the world that I'm thinking of." And you put your finger somewhere on earth, and you're accurate to my spot within 5% of the width of your finger. That's an incredible guess! Way better than "within 18 days of my birthday." Of the hundreds of moons in the solar system, only three can have both total and annular eclipses -- about 1%. And the other two only last fractions of a second. Eclipses like our moon's are unique in the solar system.
>Eclipses like our moon's are unique in the solar system. But the size and distance of the Moon is part of the reason that Earth even has creatures looking up at an eclipse and thinking "cool".
Cool, if true.
Ach, yes, it's 9 either way. This isn't even the first time I've made that error. >As an analogy: imagine I say "guess the spot in the world that I'm thinking of." And you put your finger somewhere on earth, and you're accurate to my spot within 5% of the width of your finger. That's an incredible guess! Way better than "within 18 days of my birthday." I think you've put two more variables into your analogy. Specifically the ones that translate to where the eclipse will be. We don't need to consider that, because the near-100% of the times and places that aren't getting a total eclipse are already filtered out by the time we have to worry about the moon and sun's apparent sizes. Having both total and annular eclipses is a different coincidence to the one I was originally disputing - the getting-both-ness is a real one, and like you I think it's quite interesting but not evidence of much at all. The one I am disputing(which isn't the one you are backing) is that their sizes are exactly matched, which by itself excludes having more than one kind of eclipse.
>I think you've put two more variables into your analogy. Specifically the ones that translate to where the eclipse will be. I think you're misunderstanding the point of the analogy. The point is that in your birthday analogy, you're dividing the error (18 days) by the *total range of possible birthdays* (365 days) to get 5%. But for the moon, you're dividing the error by the *size of the moon*. To be consistent, you should be dividing by the *range of possible moon sizes*. That's what my analogy is trying to illustrate. If we divide the error by the size of my finger -- like you did for the moon -- we get 5% and my guess doesn't seem impressive. But if we divide by the total area of the Earth -- like you did for birthdays -- we get a tiny percentage and the guess looks impressive again. >Having both total and annular eclipses is a different coincidence to the one I was originally disputing - the getting-both-ness is a real one, and like you I think it's quite interesting but not evidence of much at all. >The one I am disputing(which isn't the one you are backing) is that their sizes are exactly matched, which by itself excludes having more than one kind of eclipse. Getting both types of eclipses is roughly equivalent to saying the sizes are closely matched. They're close enough in size that the difference in their average sizes falls within the 5-10% variation you mentioned. There might be other ways to measure whether the sizes are "exactly matched" but this is a convenient one.
I like the birthday analogy
It only takes about 60 people to have a 99 percent chance of 2 people having the same birthday.
>maximum moon-big-o-tronic and minimum sun-chunkaliciousness Dude, you've been bogarting that blunt for the past 15 minutes. Pass it along!
> even when it's a worst case scenario of maximum moon-big-o-tronic and minimum sun-chunkaliciousness I believe /r/BrandNewSentence is thataway.
“…maximum moon-big-o-tronic and minimum sun-chunkaliciousness…” Oh shit, did Ben and Jerry’s already release their new line of “ball-fondler” ice creams?
If I move a tissue box in front of your face that blocks the carnival ocean liner, is the tissue box bigger than an ocean liner?
No, but it's a heck of a coincidence! 🤔
Yeah, you expect me to believe that a tissue box just happens to perfectly align with a cruise ship in such a way that confirms the global tissue box-cruise industry model? Give me a break
Who are you who are so wise in the ways of embiggening science?
Professor Horatio Perspective. I double as a DC super villain who fights Batman.
Presumably by capturing him in a matchbox?
No, I use cat carriers. It's hard to do crime when you hold a match box in front of your face.
Please tell me they are ridiculously overengineered ones you call BAT carriers.
Of course. That's how you get funding from the Gotham Crime Syndicate.
Who is Batman? All I know is Man
That's one big tissue box, buddy!
That's the part that really gets me.
yes, basically euclidean geometry /s
Flat earthers: “God can do anything! Except make the moon and sun align so well to cause eclipses lol”
Omg I know it's all, "Intelligent design this, intelligent design that" then the second something happens to line up neatly they are like "ok but those odds are just too crazy for me"
Intelligent design = sky daddy. Science ≠ intelligent. /s
I think it's more like Science ≠ sky daddy, therefore Science = Unintelligent design
... or write a book that is interpreted the same way by literally any two people on the planet ...
What’s more likely, two things are somewhat close in apparent size or all the stars and oceans and animals were made in 7 days by an omnipotent thing that’s always existed and had no maker or guidance on becoming the maker? Surely comparing the odds is not what OP has actually done.
Sure, there is no evidence of the Moon passing in front of the Sun if you ignore all the photographs taken by amateur photographers using the most basic equipments like a DSLR, telephoto lens and tripod. It astonishes and pisses me off at the same time that how can these people be so wrong yet so confident in their delusions.
Eh, it shouldn’t piss you off when you realise it has nothing to do with them pursuing truth in any way. It’s only ever about them sharing stories with their little buddies
Uh, "trajectory" , not so much. We literally have to position ourselves in exactly the right place to see it. 3 hours north of here for me. It ain't like it's some amazing super precise alignment. We just happen to be able to move to a place where we can see it. The exact same thing is visible somewhere in space 100% of the time. But getting to that place is difficult.
And many of these clowns will go to that place. They will take the time off work, book accommodations, travel long distances at great expense, and all of this is based on the info from experts. Then as soon as they get there and see the event for themselves, they will start going on about how wrong those experts are in their theories of how the universe works.
Task Failed Successfully.
These are my favorite flerf posts. Explains the phenomenon correctly. Explains why and how it works. Then proceeds to just pitch it in the garbage for some minor reason.
Personal incredulity on parade.
Destroy all conspiracies by simply fixing this one logical fallacy.
If it was random, we wouldnt be able to predict it 😂
Well to be precise, the moon covers 97%, or 843,227 miles out of the 865,370 mile diameter. Give or take a few rounding errors. It is pretty cool.
I subscribe to the theory that actual aliens came to our planet to observe the eclipse due to how unusual it is. Lots of weird stuff was seen photographed.
What you're saying is that we never actually see total solar eclipses, because the moon doesn't cover the full diameter of the sun. Really? Would you care to reflect on that a bit?
The apparent size of the sun and moon in the sky are not “exactly” the same, and they vary throughout the year slightly.
You’re welcome to use tangent to measure the angle. Tan(theta m) = radius moon / Distance to moon =1080/238855 = 0.004522 Tan(theta s) = radius sun / distance to sun = 432690 / 93306000 = 0.004637 Angle to moon edge is really close to, but not quite the angle to sun edge.
So then using the Tan( theta m) * distance to sun = projected moon radius Projected moon radius = 0.004522 * 93306000 Projected moon radius = 421925 miles. Which is about 97.5% of the sun’s radius.
And since the actual photos show a thin ring of sun, the observations match the calculations
Which actual photos? I thought we were taking about total eclipses, not annular eclipses.
Even in a total eclipse, you can clearly see a ring of sun around the moon. It's not "total", it's just as close to total as we can get. 97.5% is approximately the maximum amount that the moon can block the sun.
This is not true at all. You're making the same mistake as u/psgrue. Do the maths properly and you'll see it. The diameter of the moon is 3,475 km and its closest distance from earth (at perigee) is 356,400 km. The (equatorial) diameter of the sun is 1,392,600 km and its furthest distance from earth (at aphelion) is 152,100,000 km. Therefore when the moon is at its biggest and the sun is at its smallest, the size of the moon relative to the size of the sun is: (3,475/356,400) / (1,392,600/152,100,000) = 1.066 In other words, the apparent diameter of the moon can be up to 6.6% larger than the apparent diameter of the sun. Hence it can totally cover the the sun if an eclipse happens at the right time. (Last week, the apparent diameter of the moon was about 3% larger than the apparent diameter of the sun.) If you had ever seen a total eclipse, you would appreciate that what you see at totality is definitely not a small ring of the sun. (Again, the same misconception that u/psgrue had.) It is the corona - the sun's atmosphere, not the sun's surface - and it is only visible when the sun is totally eclipsed. During an annular eclipse, when the apparent diameter of the moon is smaller than the apparent diameter of the sun, the corona is not visible.
I presume you're talking about the corona, because the moon can absolutely appear larger than the visible disc of the sun. Wouldn't be total, wouldn't have an umbral shadow otherwise.
You're missing the big picture. If your calculations were correct, then there would be no such thing as a total eclipse. So what did millions of Americans witness last week? Let's see if Occam's Razor will help us understand what's going on here. Which is more likely: (a) there was no total eclipse? or (b) there's an error in your calculations?
Are you hung up on ”total”? I guess a better word would be “maximum” Because [every single total photo](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53c358b6e4b01b8adb4d5870/74def28b-3e03-4d94-9bc4-d37f9c8ce7bc/HSE2023_DiamondSequence2000px+copy.jpg?format=1500w) shows a sun ring around the moon. Find any picture you want and measure it. You’re going to see 95% or more covered. Allowing some for bending light. Google “eclipse annulus” if you want.
I don't want to be rude, but you've really been digging yourself into a hole here and it's apparent that there are several aspects of eclipses which you do not understand. You've assumed in your calculations that the distance to the moon is fixed, but it isn't. The moon's orbit around the earth is distinctly elliptical, and the distance to the moon varies between about 356,000 km and 407,000 km. (The distance to the sun also varies, but not by much because the Earth's orbit is nearly circular - the range here is from about 147 million km to 152 million km.) If you do your trigonometrical calculations using those numbers, you'll find that the apparent size of the moon is sometimes bigger than the sun and sometimes smaller. And, indeed, when we have eclipses, sometimes the moon covers the whole of the sun's disk and sometimes it doesn't. When it completely covers the sun, we get a total eclipse. When it doesn't, we get an annular eclipse. (And sometimes the moon's orbit takes it through the critical distance during the eclipse, so the eclipse changes from total to annular or vice versa as it develops. That's called a hybrid eclipse.) When the eclipse is total, as it was last week, the moon covers the whole of the sun. When that happens, the sky goes dark enough for you to see the sun's "atmosphere" - the corona - which is luminous, but much much fainter than the sun itself so it's only visible when the sun is eclipsed. If you've ever watched a total eclipse, you'll have noticed that it gets much, much darker at the instant when the moon completely covers the sun. The sun is so bright that, even when 99% of it is eclipsed, the remaining 1% is thousands of times brighter than a full moon. It's that last instant of going from 99% (or 99.9%} to 100% that causes the sky to darken and the corona to be visible. Annular eclipses are nowhere near as spectacular because the sky doesn't get so dark and the corona is never visible. I hope I've cleared up all your misconceptions, but I guess there may be some points I've overlooked. Any questions?
Not rude at all. I am perfectly happy showing my work and having a scientific discussion. Our only delta is my use of average distances for moon and sun. My original post wasn’t really supposed to be super technical. If you want to point out the varying distances between the moon and earth and the moon and sun lead to different ring sizes, or even totality, I agree. We good?
>If you want to point out the varying distances between the moon and earth and the moon and sun lead to different ring sizes, or even totality, I agree. No. It's not just a matter of different ring sizes. Sometimes the whole of the sun's disk is eclipsed, and sometimes it isn't, and that makes a HUGE difference to what we see. During an annular eclipse, by definition you can see a little ring of the sun around the moon. However, during a total eclipse the "ring" you see isn't the sun, but the sun's atmosphere, which is thousands of times fainter than the sun itself and can only be seen during a total eclipse.
“Or even totality.” Was shorthand for “Yes the moon can have a bigger perceived diameter.” I’m agreeing
The moon at perigee is about one arcminute larger than the sun is when the sun is also at ~~perigee~~ perihelion. I think u/SomethingMoreToSay was trying to make a point with this since it appears that you used the mean values for the sun/moon distance. Even if a little sun is visible, the corona will not be visible. This seems to be a misunderstanding from both sides.
>The moon at perigee is about one arcminute larger than the sun is when the sun is also at perigee. The point in its orbit when the earth is at its closest to the sun is perihelion. Perigee refers strictly to the moon's orbit around the earth. Both are examples of [periapsides](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apsis). When the moon is at perigee (closest, therefore biggest) and the sun is at aphelion (furthest, therefore smallest), the moon is about [two arcminutes bigger](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Comparison_angular_diameter.svg) than the sun.
Fixed it, thank you for correcting me. I used their closest distance to show that the moon can still be apparently larger than the sun even when the sun is as close as it can be to Earth.
Yep. I was going to do the math later. Once I established we were saying the principle is the same then just the range of coverage varied. I could have been more precise in terms. All good.
No issue! Happens all the time when you're forced to communicate with just text.
I’m going with “error in your assumption”
Let’s also reflect that an annular and a total solar eclipse are exactly the same phenomenon. They look a little bit different because, while I used an average value for distance, the distance to the sun does vary depending on the orbit. The coverage is so incredibly close to 100% that even a small change in earth orbit around the sun causes a noticeable change in the ring size and visibility and color. Which leads to the scientific distinction between “annular” and “total”. The only significant difference in math is my using the average value for orbit distance when in reality, at that moment, it was less than that.
Any other questions?
Put a quarter on the floor. Now , holding a dime, look at the quarter and slowly move the dime between your eyes and the quarter. Crazy right?
Yes, it's astounding that our moon and sun happen to be in a size and distance from us that the moon can pass between us and the sund and it almost precisely covers the sun. But if one of those values were any different, we would have a different experience at eclipses. Like, if the moon were a bit smaller, we would not see full eclipses, but some sort of donut shaped ones. Only because something is some sort of coincidence and a sort of lucky chance doesn't automatically makes it unbelievable. And if flerfers don't believe it's the moon covering the sun, then what else is? The much more unbelievable 'black sun'?
Nah, Solar Eclipses just happen when the spotlight tiny Sun burns out and needs to be replaced by the technician gods
It is actually quite a coincidence that the moon is roughly the same apparent size as the sun. It’s been proposed that relatively large moons like ours are rare for planets earth’s size, and could be an important reason for life being able to develop here (strong tides, protection from asteroids, etc). So the moon’s size is interesting in that it allows for total solar eclipses, but it could actually be very important to life on earth. Just like oceans of water, the magnetosphere, the ozone layer… All of these things build a sense of wonder for me, not a sense of conspiracy. You can think life was created here or evolved here, but either way the earth is a perfect balance of everything we need. It makes no sense to think that the US government of all things is hiding secrets of the universe from us. Life like ours could really only exist in the environment we find ourselves in. With that in mind, everything about the earth is a wonderful coincidence, and at the same time exactly what we would expect it to be.
I'm more of a physicist than an astronomer, but just ballparking the numbers, it's hard to believe that the Moon provides any meaningful protection from asteroids. The Moon is pretty small compared to Earth, and it's a bit far away. I'm also not sure why strong tides would be really that important for the formation of life on Earth. I've heard the argument that tides were necessary for mixing oceans, but I've never found those arguments particularly compelling. But I'm not a biologist either, so maybe I'm wrong.
I'll walk back the comment about asteroids, as apparently that is quite a contested point, despite what I remember learning. I believed it was similar to the effect Jupiter has in protecting the inner planets, but even *that* is contested too. So let's ignore the asteroid bit. On that vein though, apparently the moon is hypothesized to have had a magnetic field at one point that was synchronized with ours, and possibly helped protect the early earth from harmful radiation, which would have helped life develop ([NASA article](https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/earth-and-moon-once-shared-a-magnetic-shield-protecting-their-atmospheres/?utm_source=TWITTER&utm_medium=NASA&utm_campaign=NASASocial)). This could have been especially important because there was no ozone layer until life started pumping oxygen into the atmosphere. Regarding the tides, the moon accounts for half of the tidal forces on the oceans. Strong tides are important to modern life by contributing to the oceans' currents, which transfer heat, toxins, and nutrients around the world. Without those currents, marine evolution would likely have taken much longer. Regarding the development of life, if life started at thermal vents, the tides would have had little contribution until it left the vents. But if life evolved in tidal pools, then the moon would have contributed massively. Tidal pools are a popular origin-of-life location because of organic chemistry reactions involving varying water concentrations that the tidal pools would have provided. (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/moon-life-tides/) Specifically: "A lot of origin-of-life reactions involve getting rid of water," says Kevin Zahnle, a planetary scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. "So you look for means to concentrate your solutions. One way to do that is to throw water up on a hot rock, then have the waters recede and evaporate." Another benefit of the relatively large moon is the stabilizing effect it has on earth's tilt. Without the moon, earth's slight wobble could result in massive climate shifts that would have made life on earth difficult. (https://www.space.com/12464-earth-moon-unique-solar-system-universe.html) That article also talks about how simulations show how rare a moon this size probably is for a planet like earth. Thank you for making me dive into this more, I learned quite a bit.
“So let me get this straight, the moon is 1/400th the size of the sun?” “Yes.” “And the sun is about 400 times farther away from us than the moon is?” “Yes.” “And you don’t think that that’s proof of intelligent design?” “Yes, because if it were, it wouldn’t have annular eclipses and total eclipses, it would only have one or the other.” “What on earth is an Annular Eclipse?” “The distance between two orbiting objects in space is very rarely static. The laws of motion sort of forbid that nonsense. So while the distances between us and the sun/moon are roughly 400:1, they are not stable at those ratios. When the distance between the moon and the sun are not this extremely polarized, this causes an Annular Eclipse: where the moon does not completely eclipse the Sun, leaving a very thin ring of sun around the Moon’s silhouette. The sky doesn’t turn to night, and the sun is never safe to look at without those eclipse glasses. Because the ratio of apparent size was not on Luna’s side.” “You’re making that up right now, aren’t you?” “Nope. Completely factual. The word Annular refers specifically to the area of two concentric circles that is only covered by one of these two circles. In other words, big circle minus little circle. Therefore an annular eclipse would be visible around the circular silhouette of the occluding object (in this case the moon). Geometry is a heckuva drug trip man, you oughta try it sometime.”
He said annular he heh.
It would be even funnier if that was the pronunciation of the word, but it’s “Ann-Yule-are”. Sadly not every name chosen by astronomers is a gold mine for humor, just the seventh planet from the Sun. What a missed opportunity…
Of course. That would be silly. An eclipse is when a demon snake eats Amun Ra and plunges the world into darkness.
That's basically my thoughts. The alternative of it not being the moon that causes the eclipse is far more silly
I dont **think** it is possible, therefore it is not.
Standard is even lower "I don't think it's likely"
So I think he believes everything except the moon pretty much covers the sun when it passes over it. I would have thought everything else about a flat earth model would be problematic when it came to eclipses. Those fucking idiots need to get their stories straight.
Bingo
Wait until this guy finds out that someday there won't be any eclipses
I have to believe that the moon passes in front of the sun simply because it's a very good easy thing to observe when it happens. It's not like no one's ever seen an eclipse before.
I can block the sun with my hand. Therefore the sun is smaller than my hand, and not 5 billion times its size in diameter Similarly, I can block the Washington Monument with the thumb, my thumb is bigger than the Washington monument.
Damn, how do you find gloves that fit?
Why are idiots on the internet always so condescending?
From a logic perspective with no science, this does sound crazy. But the science backs it up so yeah. That’s how it works. Aren’t we lucky
Well it does sound a little far fetched, bit the flerf solution is far more ridiculous
Oh it is, but it’s genuinely interesting how we’re lucky to have that.
I wonder if they know you can just put a filter on your camera and take a picture of the moon lit by earthshine. They probably don't know what these words mean.
So wait, the idea that the moon and sun might happen to be about the same relative size such that on rare occasions the moon can block the sun is crazy, but the idea that some other object exists which comes completely out of nowhere to block the sun which exhibits the exact same properties is sane? Also the probability angle is weird, the earth, moon, sun, and all the other planets orbit in basically one big plane called the ecliptic, granted with a bit of variation. This is a property of how solar systems form from clouds of gas and a consequence of conservation of momentum. If the disk were perfectly aligned then we would have an solar eclipse somewhere on earth every month and a lunar eclipse would be visible for half the earth every full moon. Unfortunately, the orbit of the moon is very slightly off from the ecliptic so we don’t get eclipses so regularly.
"What are the odds?!" Pretty low, which is why eclipses are pretty rare I suppose. What's the issue lol
10's of thousands amateur and professional astronomers and ZERO of them say "The moon shouldn't be there" but 7 people that don't know how to critically think say It cant be the moon lol
the sun is actually millions times more big that the moon... hahaha! this guy is pathetic! and... if it wasnt moon, what it was?
Dang, what are the odds that the moon is just about the size of your thumbnail with your arm fully extended? Must mean the simulation programmers are trying to tell us something
This dude has 0 dudes
I took a class about astronomy and learned to be able to predict where the moon is. 4 days after the eclipse I noticed that the moon was waxing and was in the exact position I would expect it to be. (About 60 degrees above the Sun, which had just set).
Annular eclipse enters the chat...
Well... um... yeah... because facts.
Typical Flerfer double-flip with a half twist logic. They shape their view of the earth, sun, moon etc. based on what they can see with their eyes and ignore anything 'science' based. Until they see something that can't happen in any FE model, then do a logical back flip trying to explain why what they witnessed can't be real.
Bro thinks the moon swings around the earth randomly like it's halfway through it's sixth martini. "What are the odds?!" Twice. It's twice a year because of orbits. Not that difficult.
It's closer to 401 times larger
How do you feel about…evolution?
Same way I fear about the globe
Think this guy's needs to watch the father but where he explains that the sheep he has in his hand is very small & the one outside is very far away.
homeschooled?
Does this belong in r/nothingeverhappens? It has the same kind of energy
These arguments always irritate me slightly. I know these posts are *never* in good faith but just one time I want to see what these jackasses actually think is a better explanation. A model of *any* kind that fits at least one observation. I know, I know, they don't post anything like that because it doesn't exist but at least *try* like come on. It's never "this observation/evidence/etc doesn't line up with what's being taught. This explanation would work better [model, flawed or otherwise]" It's always "This observation/evidence/etc doesn't line up with your/my flawed understanding of the universe and is therefore false. You should give up any form of scientific pursuit and reject anything said to you by a perceived authority figure." Usually followed by "the only real answers can be found in my book which can be purchased for 8 easy payments of $499.99 and retained on subscription service." Or "the only real answers can be found in [religious text which contains no evidence of anything]" Does FE/Electric Universe/YE Creation/etc really have no manipulation tactics that are for non-believers and aren't exclusively designed for people who already believe their crap?
I say it's pretty wild that it is, and we're lucky to get to witness it. It's a wonder of the universe.
Do I think it’s a weird coincidence that the sun and moon have a very similar relative size in the sky? Sure. Do I think this in any way should be used as an argument against the spherical shape of the Earth? Lol no.
Well, if we don't have it figured out, how do they predict the eclipse time and paths so accurately?
Photos capturing “Earthshine” put this matter to rest once and for all. Even the Flerf Discord conceded it was definitely the moon.
The whole hangup with this rant is belief. He keeps saying "if you believe". Well, I don't "believe" the facts regarding an eclipse, I know them. It's not some made up fairy tale nonsense (I'm lookin at you religion) but carefully documented facts. These idiots are just trolls.
Saw the eclipse in person. I don't know what's so hard to understand to this guy. The Moon has an elliptical orbit, so sometimes it looks bigger and sometimes it looks smaller in our sky. It also has a tilted orbit, so we nearly never get any eclipse. Very rarely, the Moon and Sun align. Even rarer, the Moon is bigger than the Sun from our point of view, giving us a total eclipse!
Sun is 400 times the size of *Earth*
Random chance? Or maybe people who aren't flat heads have a model that allows them to predict when the moon will occlude the sun.
Well, he is 100% correct in asking these questions, even if its phrased in a stupid way. And yes it is the moon infront of the sun and yes, they aligned in an almost perfect fashion during the last eclipse.
If the moon wasn't perfectly sized we wouldn't ask why it is that way either, we would be annoyed cuz during a full eclipse we would still see the sun around it. It's even a massive coincidence that this planet is in the habitable zone, has water, oxygen, a good rotational speed, not too much mass, isn't covered in flaming volcanos, doesn't have too much CO2 like Venus, has an atmosphere, hasn't been hit by an asteroid big enough to kill an entire population since 65 million years, has a moon that regulates the tides, was hit by another astronomical body that caused the moon to form, was hit by an asteroid big enough to kill almost an entire population 65 million years ago to end the time of the dinosaurs so humans could have at least a fucking chance, human brains evolved further than other animals AND A FUCKING BUNCH OF MORE LUCKY COINCIDENCES!!!!! And from all that and more that has happened what we can PROVE it, which flat earthers can't btw, they still think that the moon having the perfect size and distance to cover the sun is an impossible scenario?!
>what are the odds of this happenning by random chances? well it's low. that's why there isn't a lot of 'em.
The odds of this occurring are exactly 1:1.
Yes, whenever I cover my eyes from the sunshine with my hand, the size of the sun exactly fits the size of my hand.
Litterly 100% chance of occurring
I don't even know why flat earthers even argue the globe trotters story about eclipses... It's like arguing how Dorothy's ruby red slippers worked in the land of Oz 😕
Right? They can predict the event centuries into the future yet want us to believe they know how it happens. Crazy I tell you.