The Moon can block the Sun completely during a solar eclipse because the Sun is far, far away. Is it then pure coincidence that the Moon almost completely fits the Sun’s outline, or could we’ve had solar eclipses with a much smaller Moon, thus blocking the sun only very partially?

Question

Title.

In: Physics

Answer 1

Yes. The apparent disc of the sun is 400 times wider than the disc of the moon and just by coincidence 400 times further away, making them appear the same size.

If we lived in a galactic civilisation, no doubt people would come from all over the galaxy to visit our planet just to see our strange sun and moon.