Solar Eclipse: Size and Distance

Curt Bright Author

08/14/2017 Added

871 Plays

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The Earth is the only planet in our solar system that experiences total eclipses. University of Nebraska physics graduate students Karl Ahrendsen and Andrew Vikartofsky size up the reasons why.

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[00:00:03.199]Even though the sun and the moon appear roughly
[00:00:05.237]to be the same size in the sky,
[00:00:07.288]the sun is actually much larger than the moon.
[00:00:10.056]Let's see how big they are relative to each other.
[00:00:13.515]Imagine the sun's diameter fits snugly
[00:00:15.405]between home plate and second base.
[00:00:17.776]Hey, Andrew, how'd you get to second base so fast?
[00:00:21.104]A gentlemen physicist never tells.
[00:00:23.805]If the sun were that big, then the Earth would shrink
[00:00:26.296]to about the size of this exercise ball.
[00:00:29.485]And the moon would be the size of this stinger dodgeball.
[00:00:32.713]So during a total eclipse, how can something
[00:00:35.000]this small completely block out something this big?
[00:00:38.851]The answer is perspective.
[00:00:40.731]The moon only appears to be the same size as the sun
[00:00:43.491]because the moon is a lot closer
[00:00:45.091]to the Earth than the sun is, about 400 times closer.
[00:00:50.032]You know things appear smaller when they're further away?
[00:00:52.973]Well, the sun is really, really far away.
[00:00:56.232]I'm squishing you!

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Solar Eclipse: Size and Distance

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