For an average child, the moon and the sun is the same! Just that one comes in the night and the other during the day!
In fact he or she may at first think that the moon is more powerful since it gives light in the night! While the sun gives light in the day when there already is so much light!
Also when you see; practically they look the same size! Though in fact the moon gets bigger and bigger and becomes the size of the sun!
That is the issue of perception!
Size only matters when it is close to you!
Which is why even though the sun is so big, it looks the same size as the moon! This is because, even though the Moon is 400 times smaller than the Sun, it is also also 400 times closer to Earth!
This is also why solar eclipses are so dramatic when you realise that the tiny moon completely covers the sun! This means that from Earth, the Moon and Sun appear to be roughly the same size in the sky. It is a complete coincidence!
For scientists, solar eclipses have played a crucial part in our understanding of the Universe. By shielding telescopes from the Sun’s glare, they have allowed us to explore and learn about the solar corona, a glowing ring of super-hot gas that extends millions of kilometres into outer space and causes solar winds!
Then again they also gave Validation to Einstein!
The most scientifically important solar eclipse occurred in 1919. Then, a team led by Arthur Eddington captured pictures of stars behind the Sun as darkness fell. They compared the stars’ positions to where they would be on a normal night, and made a startling discovery – they had moved!
This meant the Sun had bent the starlight. The only theory that could account for the amount the starlight bent came from Albert Einstein!
Eddington’s results catapulted Einstein into the limelight and started to turn scientific opinion in favour of his general theory of relativity!
Even now when it comes to Physics; Einstein is right up there with the stars or rather the moon!
The bad news is that the Moon is slowly drifting away from us! It is escaping at the rate of 2.5 cm every year! Some time in future you would look up in the sky and the moon would have escapes! It is thus a visitor who will stay for some billion years!
Of course some people will look at the moon and see only the spots! While many others see the beauty! Like the one with the scars but still beautiful like Merle Oberon…
Let’s look at the beauty and see beyond the scars…
Shubh ratri…
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