Sun flickering?!

[Ernie Nemeth]

No. It is about the size of the shadow the moon throws onto the Earth's surface. As Bill's post above shows the moon's shadow, on the Earth's surface, is about 110km.

[Hervé]

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[jc71]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Posted by jc71 (here)
There is probably something big I am missing here...

Yes, I think you are missing something quite big... the huge size of the sun.

Well yes I can see it is quite huge, but also the distance to it is quite far as well. I'll have to draw some big diagram to satisfy myself that this works. When you try to draw it on say an A4 piece of paper, the sizes of the sun, moon and earth are too small to really understand the angles.

Thanks for the input. I'll go back to the drawing board (literally)

JC

[Ernie Nemeth]

The incredible coincidence of this sun, earth, moon relationship: The moon is just the right distance from the Earth and just the right diameter to barely cover the surface of the sun as seen from Earth! This allows for a total solar eclipse (none of the suns disk can be seen, only the corona - the fire surrounding the sun) within the umbra thrown by the shadow of the moon.

[jc71]

Posted by Hervé (here)

...

Thanks Hervé. It clearly works very well on this diagram, but it is misleading in that obviously the sun is much further away from the Earth, and much larger than it appears here. Clearly if the proportions have been scaled down correctly then it works fine. I am just trying to satisfy myself that it does work to scale rather than just accepting diagrams like this representation. It does seem that the answer is in the massive difference in diameter between the sun and the moon. I am going to go back to the drawing board

JC

[Hervé]

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Solar System – sizes but not distances are to scale. The Sun and the eight planets of the Solar System

[jc71]

Posted by Hervé (here)

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Solar System – sizes but not distances are to scale. The Sun and the eight planets of the Solar System

Thanks. Yes the sizes are massively different. It is just the distance between them that isn't easy to illustrate on diagrams like this whilst keeping the Earth and Moon at an easily visible size, but I can see how it is very likely to be correct when drawn out to scale (the angle of the cone). I just wanted to show it to myself to get my head round it fully. I will go and do that now

JC

[AngelEyes]

I really appreciate all the replies. I am definitely going to study more and on history of our sun and solar system. All of this is a big interest to me and yes I will admit I do spend alot of time on youtube and I really need to steer away from it and do some digging.

[7alon]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Posted by AngelEyes (here)

Posted by DbDraad (here)
93 Million miles is local in astronomical terms...right next door.

I keep hearing that term? "Local Sun". didnt know this! thank you!

Well, the sun really is very local to us in galactic terms! Here's an analogy:

If our sun was your neighboring house, say 100 yds away, right next door, and you could talk to your neighbors over the fence — then the next nearest star (Proxima Centauri) would be the next nearest house, 15,700 miles away.

And that's the NEXT CLOSEST star to us.

Well said Bill, that really puts it into a more comprehensible perspective.

[Ernie Nemeth]

To understand the distance from the earth to the sun I like to use diameters, as that really illustrates the difference in sizes.

An AU (astronomical unit) is defined as the distance from the earth to the sun...
https://www.google.ca/search?site=&s...k1.CJZKEa9Emf8
92,960,000 miles

The diameter of the sun is...
https://www.google.ca/search?q=what+....0.MpUKtWbwKBA
864,575.9 miles

The distance from earth to sun is about 107 sun diameters. Only 107! Easily understood - and means that the sun is extremely large.

In comparison, the earth's diameter is...
https://www.google.ca/search?q=what+...k1.wIsIuZbDlFA
7,917.5 miles

So 11,747 earths fit in the same distance, or 11, 640 more earths than suns.