And looking at the big picture:
Here we have a nice, comfortable G2 star. And a tidally evolved moon, which is large enough to be reasonably spherical (but still possessing interesting topography), that as seen from the earth's surface is very close to exhibiting the same angular size as that G2 star. And to put some numbers to it, the sun is 400 times larger than the moon, but the sun is also 400 times (m/l) further away.
And as the moon's orbit tidally evolved (it receded from the earth) we infer in the past it was much closer and although eclipses would have been more frequent, they would have also been much less interesting as the apparent size of the moon would have blotted out the interesting sight of the suns prominences and corona. Additionally, in the future, as the moon continues to recede eventually total eclipses will cease and they will all be annular, that is, the moon will never appear large enough to blot out the entire disk of the sun's surface.
Add all this up, a comfy planet, apparent size of sun and moon being 'close enough', orbital parameters of the moon (inclination, eccentricity, nodes, apsides, saros, etc) and we quite possibly enjoy . . .
[drum roll]
the BEST eclipses in the galaxy.
ENJOY !!!
Here we have a nice, comfortable G2 star. And a tidally evolved moon, which is large enough to be reasonably spherical (but still possessing interesting topography), that as seen from the earth's surface is very close to exhibiting the same angular size as that G2 star. And to put some numbers to it, the sun is 400 times larger than the moon, but the sun is also 400 times (m/l) further away.
And as the moon's orbit tidally evolved (it receded from the earth) we infer in the past it was much closer and although eclipses would have been more frequent, they would have also been much less interesting as the apparent size of the moon would have blotted out the interesting sight of the suns prominences and corona. Additionally, in the future, as the moon continues to recede eventually total eclipses will cease and they will all be annular, that is, the moon will never appear large enough to blot out the entire disk of the sun's surface.
Add all this up, a comfy planet, apparent size of sun and moon being 'close enough', orbital parameters of the moon (inclination, eccentricity, nodes, apsides, saros, etc) and we quite possibly enjoy . . .
[drum roll]
the BEST eclipses in the galaxy.
ENJOY !!!
The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it.
