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Thought for the Day: What a Great Stroke of Luck to Experience a Total Solar Eclipse

I get my news largely from NPR.  "But... but... sputter... sputter... it's so biased!", you declaim.  Precisely why I like it.  Everyone is biased; people who claim to be unbiased (and often strive to hide their bias) are, therefore completely unreliable.  If I know your bias, then I can account for it and extract out the true bits from your rhetoric.

Before I tell you about the news story I heard this morning, you need to know some facts.  (I know, I know... I am always being told how boring it is to first clarify the facts before discussing something.  I strive to be boring.)  Around the main disc of the sun is a aura of plasma that extends millions of miles (millions of kilometers, if you prefer) into the surrounding space, known as the corona.  Since it is so much less dense than the body of the sun, it is much less bright.  In fact, the corona is all but invisible unless you actually block the light of the globe of the sun.  How do we even know about it, you might ask.  Good question.

In 1931 the French astronomer Bernard Lyot invented/introduced the coronagraph.   Basically, it is a disc of just the right size that is attached to a telescope block the disc of the sun.  With that, the corona (quite beautiful and delicate) can be observed and studied.  The coronagraph requires precision in size and placement.  Too big and the corona will be blocked, too small and the sunlight will obliterate it.  Off center and the disc of the sun from one side will overpower the instrumentation and leave the corona unobservable.  All very cool.  What you should be wondering now, though, is how in the world did professor Lyot think to make such a device?

No problem; it turns out that the moon is just the right size to block the disc of the sun during a total eclipse and leave the corona visible to the naked eye.  Which brings us to the NPR report I heard this morning.  First, they noted, it is an unbelievably lucky accident that we can observe solar eclipses at all.  First, the moon has to be just the right size and just the right distance from the earth to occlude the sun and leave the corona visible.  In fact, the sun is 400 times bigger than the moon; luckily, the sun is also 400 times as far away from the earth as the moon is.  Then there is the lucky accident that we have a moon at all; not all planets do, you know.  Moreover, the plane of the orbit of the moon just happens to be nearly in the same plane as the orbit of the earth around the sun (not exactly, though, which is how we get phases of the moon).  What luck!  Oh... and this is also very cool: the moon is actually moving way from the earth.  A few millions years earlier and the sun (with its corona) would have been completely blocked; in a few million years, the moon will no longer block the sun.  Holey moley that's a lot of unbelievably lucky coincidences!

I agree.  Totally unbelievable that all that is a coincidence.  The moon and its placement in orbit is just as precise as the placement of the coronagraph on the astronomer's telescope.  In fact, the Shabbos liturgical poem ק-ל אדון more or less explicitly refers to the phenomenon of solar eclipses. The stanza for ק -- it's in alphabetical order -- says: קרא לשמש ויזרח אור/He called to the sun and it shone forth light.  The stanza for ר then says: ראה והיתקין צורת הלבנה/He perceived... and He established the trajectory and form of the moon.  What did He see?  The Sages from thousands of years ago explain that HaShem perceived that there would be people who would worship the sun.  To make it explicit in Creation that the sun it not to be worshipped, therefore, HaShem establish the trajectory and form of the moon so that it would from time to time block the sun.

Yes; it is unbelievable that such precision in placement is an accident.  Yes; it is very fortunate that we get to experience this profound and explicit revelation of the HaShem's mastery of the universe.

Afterward: Since the main function of the solar eclipse is to demonstrate the fallaciousness of those who worship false deities (rather than to demonstrate HaShem's mastery in a positive way), there is no bracha recited upon observing the eclipse; not total and certainly not partial.

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