(October 29, 2014 at 10:34 am)Alex K Wrote:(October 29, 2014 at 10:19 am)Heywood Wrote: What are the odds the sun and the moon would appear to be the same apparent size at the exact same time intelligent beings would exist to appreciate it?
I used to think it astronomical and maybe it still is....but I now know things about solar system formation that suggest to me that perhaps its not such a long shot after all.
They are not of the same apparent size most of the time. Through the variation of the orbits of the earth around the sun and that of the moon around the earth, there is considerable variation combining to maybe 15% change of the apparent relative sizes. This increases the odds that there can be an exclipse.
You have annular and ocular eclipses that make it easy to see that yes there arn't always exactly the same apparent size. Still when I gaze up at the sky...they always have seemed the same size to me.
