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Originally Posted by Ensign Steve
Quote:
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The reason why the ISS keeps its relative size against both the Sun and the Moon is due to a remarkable coincidence: the diameter of the Moon is 400x smaller than the diameter of the Sun, but it is also 400x closer to us!
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That's the same reason a total eclipse of the sun does the visible corona thing it does. If the moon was larger, it would block out the corona. If it was smaller, the visible portion of the sun would be too bright and would wash the corona out.
It's also the case that the distance between the earth and moon is increasing, so we are living during a limited time window during which the remarkable coincidence exists. So I guess the coincidence between the sizes isn't as remarkable, since it was bound to happen at some point in time. The more remarkable coincidence for me is that it happened to be when we were around to see it. |
We're so fucking lucky, yet kinda not at the same time.