I wonder what the odds of that are....
and what are the odds that happens to a planet that supports intelligent life?
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The current scientific consensus is that the Moon was formed from the debris of a collision between the proto-Earth and a Mars-sized planetesimal, known as the giant impact hypothesis or Theia Impact, approximately 4.5 billion years ago in the Hadean eon.
...and that the just the right amount of material was ejected from the earth and it wound up at just the right distance. All seems highly improbable....
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N = R*× fp × ne × fl × fi × fc × L apparently
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Have you heard of the anthropic principle?
This principle addresses the seemingly improbable conditions that allow for our existence in the universe. When discussing the habitability of our planet and the odds of us living in a universe that supports life, the anthropic principle suggests that we can observe and reflect on these conditions because they are precisely what have allowed for our existence.
In a broader context, this principle comes in two main forms: the Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP) and the Strong Anthropic Principle (SAP). The Weak Anthropic Principle posits that the universe's physical laws and parameters are observed to allow life because only in a universe capable of eventually supporting life will there be beings capable of observing and reflecting on these laws. In simpler terms, we can observe a universe conducive to life because we are a product of such a universe.
The Strong Anthropic Principle takes a more assertive stance, suggesting that the universe must have properties that inevitably lead to the development of conscious life at some point in its history.
Critics of the anthropic principle argue that it can border on tautology and doesn't provide a causal explanation for why the universe is the way it is. Instead, it merely states that if things were different, we wouldn't be here to notice them. This perspective shifts the focus from why the universe is habitable to the observation that we are here because it is habitable, which doesn't necessarily explain the underlying mechanisms or reasons for the universe's life-supporting conditions.
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Sure, but there are many planets in our solar system - and countless more in the universe - that don't have their moons positioned at the exact size/distance to produce perfect solar eclipses.
Neither does it seem probable that this exact distance was necessary for creation of life.
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There is something called the Goldilocks zone suggesting a series of quite stringent conditions on the distance from a star to support the creation of life. Not sure creation is the word one would like to use though ;)
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Either way, eclipses on other planets aren't nearly as awesome, Mars for example is patheticsville compared to ours:
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I bet there is a physics reason for this that we haven't discovered yet.
Some weird quirk with gravity and speed/impulse that nudged the moon exactly to that distance away. Idk - maybe we'll find an explanation in a few years or decades
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