It its infinite possibilities and part of what nature is, then what we see in nature is it occasionally spits out something thats gone a wee bit askew. Something that wasn’t meant to happen, but with so many things happening its inevitable something goes wrong somewhere.

Possibly life itself is the unintended possibility.

Banks postulated that our moon is an unusually sized satellite compared to most others, and sits at just the right point in orbit, at just the right distance from the sun to make an eclipse a special thing.

as a scientist, it’s ‘coincidences’ like that which make me question the existence of god far more than the fact someone wrote a book and built a church.

as a scientist, it’s ‘coincidences’ like that which make me question the existence of god far more than the fact someone wrote a book and built a church

Yeah, and in an infinite universe with the potential for aliens there’d have to be things that we would describe as ‘godlike’. It wouldn’t mean that they were actually gods, anymore than I am to my cat. But, possibly, aliens put the moon in the right place to enjoy a proper eclipse.

Is this not just a form of confirmation bias?

That is to say, if the relative observable sizes of the sun and moon weren’t similar, we wouldn’t all be sat here thinking it noteworthy.

I suspect there is other life out there somewhere but would we even recognise it if we saw it?
I doubt other life would be humanoid and it may exist in such unrecognisable dimensions to make no sense to us.
I think it’s the end of Men in Black where it turns out the milky way is the inside of an alien’s marble – that sort of thing!
What we can detect is based on our human senses and other life may have evolved in such a way that it’s impossible to observe.

Is this not just a form of confirmation bias?

That is to say, if the relative observable sizes of the sun and moon weren’t similar, we wouldn’t all be sat here thinking it noteworthy.

Not really – no-one’s suggesting it seriously. It was a quote taken from a book, which someone mocked without picking up on the most important bit of info.

What we can detect is based on our human senses and other life may have evolved in such a way that it’s impossible to observe.

Careful now. Someone on here suggested recently that trees might have a different form of intelligence and it didn’t go down well. We’re all too simian for your outlandish thinking. (I’ve always loved the idea of the ‘intelligent shade of blue’ that Douglas Adams mentions in Hitchhikers.)

(I’ve always loved the idea of the ‘intelligent shade of blue’

That was the Oovaloo or something? Gnn that’s not quite right is it.

Hooloovoo, I looked it up.

https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Hooloovoo

The Hooloovoo resemble a super-intelligent shade of the colour blue.
…
It is ambiguous whether the Hooloovoo are super-intelligent compared to other galactic inhabitants, or only by comparison to other shades of blue

😂

I think it’s the end of Men in Black where it turns out the milky way is the inside of an alien’s marble – that sort of thing!

Indeed. The universe was formed by an explosion, which is still happening as the universe is expanding.

So like all explosions that will eventually stop and either end abruptly, or the tailing edge will catch up .

I’ve no idea the mechanics of an explosion.

I think what should be thought about is(in relation to your men in black scenario) is what is happening inside an explosion. What is being formed in the expanding gases. Are they swirling in turmoil, creating little eddies, that go on for so long then petre(peter?) out.

And if thats the case then we, and our galaxy and all the other phenomena are just these little eddies.

… moon placement…

Given Cougar’s sums I wouldn’t be surprised if there were thousands of moons with the same relative size and orbital location. With that in mind I would take Bank’s fiction as saying aliens put the moon there because it was cheaper to do than keep travelling longer distances to another eclipse… possibly.

And if thats the case then we, and our galaxy and all the other phenomena are just these little eddies.

So every time the kids set off a fun snap…..

So every time the kids set off a fun snap…..

A trillion trillion planetary systems born and snuffed out in an instant.

but if time is relative…. we could be in a universe created by one of those children.

makes you think….

The universe was formed by an explosion

the “Big Bang” – an absolutely terrible name! – wasn’t an explosion (at least not anything like one we’d be familiar with)

the “Big Bang” – an absolutely terrible name! – wasn’t an explosion (at least not anything like one we’d be familiar with)

I had a friend/colleague/drinking buddy when I worked in cancer research years ago, who was very clever and had a PhD in radiotherapy. He hated things like this. It was when the dinosaur/meteorite extinction theory was first becoming popular and I remember him ranting about ‘bloody Americans, only happy when there’s lots of explosions, fireworks and deaths.’

Sorry, but its obvious how the dinosaurs died out. There can only be one explanation.

So like all explosions that will eventually stop and either end abruptly, or the tailing edge will catch up .

The opposite is actually the case. The expansion of the universe is actually accelerating.

I’ll just put this here: https://earthsky.org/earth/eclipses-on-earth-and-other-planets/

So while our eclipse experience on Earth today is virtually unrivaled anywhere in the solar system, it is simply a temporary coincidence.

There are about 200 billion stars just in our galaxy, A low guess for the extrapolated universe is 10 to the 24th solar systems with planets, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or a trillion trillion.

And you’re still missing the point.

It was a joke.

On that though, apparently Jupiter has solar eclipses thanks to the massiveness of Ganymede and the distance from the sun. Unfortunately nobody has figured out a practical way to observe it.

The uniqueness of our eclipse is also down to the fact that the moon just about exactly covers the sun giving rise to the phenomena observed during an eclipse. The moon is in an increasing orbit though so we’ll only be able to enjoy this for another 50 million years.

The chances of another ‘goldilocks’ world is highly improbable.

It gets worse, I think the current thinking is that not only do you need a goldilocks planet, you’ll pretty much need a goldilocks Solar System. Without Jupiter capturing all the nasty nasty stuff (asteroids and so on) in it’s gravity, it’ likely passing debris would have done for us as well as for the dinosaurs.

Ahh, I’ve clearly not had enough coffee… or too much 😀

The uniqueness of our eclipse is also down to the fact that the moon just about exactly covers the sun giving rise to the phenomena observed during an eclipse.

The uniqueness of our eclipse is also down to our unique vantage point. (-:

It gets worse, I think the current thinking is that not only do you need a goldilocks planet, you’ll pretty much need a goldilocks Solar System. Without Jupiter capturing all the nasty nasty stuff (asteroids and so on) in it’s gravity, it’ likely passing debris would have done for us as well as for the dinosaurs.

That’s a really good point. I wonder though (and I don’t know the answer to this) whether the factors that created us would typically create a similar solar system due to [physics] or whether its a complete Brownian Motion dice roll each time? Ie, is there a reason beyond pure chance that we have a Jupiter and an Earth and all the others or is that just how it all exploded and coalesced?