If you want to what the Moon's shadow looks like as it crosses Earth, from space, I highly encourage you to check out NOAA's GOES Image Viewer! As of this moment, you can see a very dark circle crossing over the central United States.
Even better, the website will animate the last 24 or so images (captured every 10 minutes). It's awesome! [1]
Sitting under the cloud cover just praying that some of the gaps in the clouds would buddy up and make bigger gaps, I found myself looking forward to this view of being able to distinctly see the shadow racing across the cloud tops preventing the terrestrial views. While the moment of totality was reached was obscured so that I barely made out the diamond ring effect, the majority of totality was behind very thin clouds.
As luck would have it, within minutes after totality completed, it was blue sky with pretty much no clouds. I swear the gawds hate me or someone in my town!
Part of that is that Earth's moon is quite large compared to other moons like Phobos.
Here's a nice pic of Phobos and Deimos as seen from the mast-camera of Curiosity, compared with Luna.
I remember reading an Asimov piece many years ago where he was (typically) spinning out a kind of what-if about how the large size of the moon, and the consequent majorly-obvious eclipses, influenced the importance of ancient astronomy. Not to mention other effects like tides and moonlight.
it's the opposite, a long time ago eclipses were "bigger" and happened more often, as the moon drifts farther away, it seems smaller to us and will no longer be big enough in our sky to block the sun one day.
Estimates suggest that total solar eclipses could cease to occur in about 600 million years from now, give or take, depending on the precise nature of lunar recession and changes in Earth's rotation. This timeframe is long enough that many other changes on Earth and in the solar system will also occur, making the cessation of total solar eclipses just one of many transformations.
Yes, this is the strangest coincidence of this entire setup to me, it doesn't seem related to enabling the development of life (besides, when life arose, the position of the moon was quite different), but it was instrumental in verifying the theory of relativity, just in time for humanity to discover it.
The whole idea of an annular solar eclipse is that the size is not actually exact :)
I think part of the perception that a total eclipse "perfectly" blocks the sun is that the corona has a fuzzy edge but the surface does not, so when the moon is actually larger than the sun in the sky you still see the same eerie coronal glow. In particular there's little perceptible difference between blocking 100% of the sun and blocking 105% of the sun, compared to 100% versus 95%.
From my perspective it's one of many evidences that our planet was intentionally created by God. I think He wanted us to experience these rare and spectacular events and use them to make astronomical discoveries.
Although I do not consider myself to be a very religious person I have to say, that is a very beautiful thought. It's exceedingly rare these days that any topic brought up on religion will actually give me pause and for a moment make me wonder if there is something beyond scientific coincidence. It just really goes to show how all the fanfare behind a natural phenomenon as simple as an eclipse can be such a worthwhile human experience to share.
I just want to say that I don't understand why this is being downvoted. I'm an atheist and still see it as a wonderful (and different) way to interpret this fact. Even I am in awe of that fact, and it's only natural for crazy coincidences to feel "intentional"
Anything other than that which is experienced by the self is inadmissible as a critique of God, imo. But that is for believers. For the believers this earthly existence is a developmental phase, kinda like being in your mom's belly. We drink blood and are covered by darkness, figuratively speaking. And then we emerge a 'New Creation' -- as spiritual beings.
For someone who only accepts material reality framed by womb and tomb, naturally the question has already been answered: "No god" and then the strawman God of the materialist -- "why doesn't God make material existence as perfect as spiritual existence, bad God .." -- makes an entrance and gets its deserved downvotes.
I have long observed that the Abrahamic God seems to be quite an asshole, at least based on the writings his followers believe in. Heck, sometimes I have idle thoughts that maybe that which people call 'God' these days is in fact 'Satan' and he did in fact tempt everyone away from the real deal.
I have long observed that the Abrahamic God seems to be quite an asshole
If you only read the Old Testament, that makes sense. The reason that Jesus threw such a massive spanner into the works and made everyone upset was that he preached the exact opposite. Then everyone freaked out.
No, something like that is observable by any person. You made claims, theological claims, about Jesus and OT and the rest of it. That is not mere observation. And then when responded to claim ignorance of such matters and make snide comments about reaching out to others. It is a dishonest way of discussing a matter. Enjoy the blooms. It is spring..
Yeah, I kinda figured you didn't want an actual answer; just an argument.
If you ever want to learn something, as I suggested, go ahead and contact someone who's studied this sort of thing. They're very often willing to help. And usually tremendously patient with the sort of person who equates arguing on the internet with validation of their preconceived points of view.
It's OK. There's nothing to be afraid of. They wont get any magic Jesus cooties on you and turn you into a Bible-thumper.
>Once you've seen someone die painfully and slowly from cancer over years, you know there can be no god.
i agree with you, but I think the conclusion from your argument is that the Good god does not exist, it is still possible that a Creator exist, but one that is not Good. kind or have human like qualities and morals.
That’s what I wonder about simulation theory. People say that it’s just nerds coming up with another god, but isn’t there the difference that if we live in a simulation it’s highly unlikely that the folks running it will come to hand pick the believers in to a heaven program after they die.
Stanislaw Lem had a story about that too (surprise!), read by many of in Hofstader & Dennett's "The Minds Eye". The simulation-runner expresses wonderment that the denizens of the simulation would imagine that he cared in any way about them.
Seriously though, if god was real, don't you think she would take away Childhood leukemia, or prevent the holocaust, rather than riddles and odd science setups ?
If you seriously wanted the answer, you'd ask the people who have been studying this question for hundreds or thousands of years.
Asking a bunch of randos on a tech blog doesn't come off as "serious." It comes off as someone who's already formed an opinion and is repeating it to himself to reinforce his position.
It's like saying you "seriously" want to understand Mozart, and then go asking at the dog show.
Yeah, why does he not ever get the blame? Many people are quick to give him all the credit for good things, but mysteriously that no longer applies when something bad happens. Huh.
From what I’ve heard, the moon is also moving away from earth, ever so slightly. Something like 1cm/year. Eventually, the moon will appear too small to cover the sun and the eclipse as we know it today will be no more. But that won’t be in our lifetime. Who knows if humans will even still be around..
And besides all the other remarks, both earth's and the moon's orbits are something like ellipses. So that the ratio of apparent size of the moon to apparent size of the sun is not fixed either. See annular eclipse.
Y'know, seeing two of these now, I totally get why a peasant in þe olde times would freak out about this. It suddenly gets cold, your animals are freaking out, and the thing that makes your food grow is disappearing. Yeah, that's a problem.
I live in Dallas TX and this is the first total eclipse i remember. When totality got closer my shadow on the ground become strange, i can't put my finger on it but something about my shadow seemed different. The last minute or so increased the darkness very fast, it got wayyy darker than i was expecting. The streetlights came on, all my neighbor's porch lights came on, and I could see a star/planet next to the sun.
Hi neighbor! Even with the clouds covering at the critical moment, the experience was just so one of those things you must experience yourself as you'll never get a sense of it from just someone else describing it to you. I had been reading and watching content from people that had previously experience eclipses, and even though what they describe happening happened, it's just totally different in person. I used to say this about seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time after seen pictures/video of it, but the eclipse was at least 10x that experience.
I'm thankful for the clouds clearing enough for the experience, but I really felt that the totally clear skies within minutes of totality ending was really just a slap in the face from the universe!
I live north of Austin and the hour before totality we had a fair amount of clouds with the sun just peaking through, then just minutes before we reached 100% the low clouds just seemingly evaporated, temperatures dropped sharply, and every bird and frog around started singing. All the automatic lights had turned on by that time. Then totality hit and seeing the 'black hole sun' with a white ring around it was just awe inspiring. You don't know exactly how to interpret the sky, because it's kind of like pre-dawn in every direction. Sky glow is coming from every direction, and yet it's dark where you are. Finally when the sun comes back it rapidly brightens. Looking off to the north east I could see the darkness of the shadow that had been over us.
> I used to say this about seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time after seen pictures/video of it, but the eclipse was at least 10x that experience.
I said the same thing about seeing Tunnel View in Yosemite for the first time. It's the closest thing that I can say that describes the experience and the eclipse eclipses (heh) that.
Yeah, the severe color change was an interesting experience. I didn't bother trying to image it, as the fakey fakeness of the enhancing software would have "corrected" it.
When it's a crescent shape, it's also more crisp in one direction. So if you hold up a square and make a shadow on the ground, two sides are sharp, two sides are blurry. Or if you look at your own shadow, it's a mix of sharp and blurry edges, which looks unusual.
I'm worried about booking an AirBnb as I've heard of numerous cases of accommodations being canceled nearing the event as the hosts realize they can make much more money.
I just saw it. It felt like the exact correct level of hype. Incredible, and easily worth driving six hours for.
The image of the corona around the sun is seared into my memory now, and I want to see it again - I see why some people become "eclipse-chasers", and travel the world to experience this again.
And that's despite our scientific understanding of the phenomenon, really explains why people who lacked that understanding viewed eclipses as a bad omen.
You're totally right. This was obviously just a nasa conspiracy where they sent the moon on a different trajectory for a little bit to keep us all from noticing the aliens!
Even better, the website will animate the last 24 or so images (captured every 10 minutes). It's awesome! [1]
[1] https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/fulldisk_band.php?sat=...