why do eclipses like up perfectly and yet in the days surrounding the sun isn’t partially covered as the solar bodies gradually like up?

Question

Seems odd that they go from not being near one another at all (to partially cover) to suddenly being perfectly lined up.

In: 171

Answer 1

The moon isn’t orbiting the Earth in the same plane that Earth is orbiting the sun(about 5 degrees off), so we only get eclipses when the line where those planes cross is pointing at the sun(twice a year), and only if the moon is also at one of those points at the same time(twice a month). The distance the moon passes above or below the sun looks like a sine wave, the points where it crosses are where the position is changing the fastest.

For another way of thinking about it, the diameter of the moon is about 3500km, the circumference of the moon’s orbit around the earth is about 2.4 million km. There’s an awful lot of places for the moon to be that aren’t between the sun and the earth.