This is the third book in the series that included 'The Theory of Nothing' the "The Universe Revealed.' My purpose in this new book is to more fully explain how science is actually done and how science fits into our culture along with religion and p...
Could a total eclipse of the sun occur on an alien world?
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The recent total eclipse made me think about this. As you might know, the reason we see occasional total eclipses is because the moon is just the right size and distance to cover the sun even though the sun is 400 times larger, the moon is 400 times closer. As it turns out, the reason eclipses are rare events is because the moon's orbit is both elliptical and slanted to the ecliptic, the path of the Earth's orbit around the sun. It takes a perfect alignment of the moon and the sun to make it happen.
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In order to determine if an exo-planet would have this same phenomenon, we would have to determine just how many of these planets have a large moon. We just recently discovered Earth- like planets orbiting nearby stars thanks to the Keppler space telescope. However, no exo-moons have been detected. This would take a much more powerful telescope. Perhaps the James Webb space telescope will be able to detect exo-moons.
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Even if an Earth-like planet has a moon, it would have to be just the right size and distance to cause an eclipse. I have a feeling that this phenomenon is very rare. However, given the size of the universe and the trillions of galaxies, it's probably happening somewhere.
The next question is: why do we have this eclipse phenomenon?
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Just recently I was made aware of an idea that I didn't know. According to Luke's gospel, when Jesus died on the cross, the sky darkened from noon to three in the afternoon. Some have interpreted this as being caused by a total eclipse. However, there are two things wrong with this theory. One is that a total eclipse only lasts 3 or 4 minutes. The longest was around 7 minutes. That's not three hours. The other problem is that Passover is always during a full moon, not a new moon. These two facts make the idea of a total eclipse at Jesus' death improbable.
The ancients have attributed great events to the occurrence of eclipses. During this latest eclipse, people were commenting on NASA's feed about this being a sign from God about this and that. They made it sound as if God was trying to communicate to us through a eclipse.
The truth is that an eclipse is only an artifact of nature. We're just lucky that it happens. It has no other significance.
