A total solar eclipse is an extraordinary visual and emotional experience, from the moon’s first bite out of the sun’s unblemished disc, to the moment that the daylight sky becomes dark and the sun’s blazing light is muted. The temperature drops, the moon’s shadow can be seen speeding across the Earth’s surface, and there is a sudden silence as animals settle down to sleep under the impression that night has fallen.
Yet the fact that we see a solar eclipse at all is something of a miracle. Ours is the only planet in the solar system whose moon appears from the surface to have the same angular size in the sky as that of the sun: it is 400 times smaller, but also 400 times closer. This cosmological coincidence allows the moon to completely block out the sun to reveal the ethereal beauty of its tenuous outer atmosphere, the corona, to those fortunate enough to be standing in the shadow of the moon.
