THE MIRACLE OF THE MOON Eric Metaxas from his book, Miracles

The Amazing Subject of Eclipses

We cannot leave the subject of the moon until we touch upon the almost unthinkably amazing subject of eclipses. Most of us haven’t considered that for eclipses to occur as they do, the sun and moon must appear almost precisely the same size in the sky. As with so many things, we take eclipses for granted. They are just a part of the way things are. But when we know the details of the sizes and numbers of the moons throughout our solar system, the idea that the sun and our moon appear almost exactly the same size from our Earth-bound vantage point is essentially preposterous and bizarre. But it is this freakish fact that makes them cover each other so perfectly during a total eclipse. Though it has no bearing on the existence of life as far as we know, like all else we have examined, it gives such startling evidence of design— and therefore a designer— that we can hardly ignore it.

The details are as follows: The moon has a diameter of 2,159 miles. In order for a total eclipse to be possible, it must look the same size as the sun, whose diameter is 864,327 miles. If you divide 864,327 by 2,159, you get 400.337. In other words, the sun is almost exactly four hundred times the size of the moon. So in order for them to look the same size from Earth, the distance from Earth to the sun must be about four hundred times the distance from Earth to the moon. What are the odds that that should be the case? Nonetheless, the average distance of the sun from Earth is almost exactly 93,000,000 miles, and the average distance from the moon to Earth is roughly 238,857 miles. If you divide 93,000,000 by 238,857, you get . . . 389. That number is so close to four hundred that they really do look precisely the same size to us here on Earth. Can we avoid being taken aback by this? If we should be less startled than spooked, who could blame us? Can we avoid at least wondering whether it’s all been somehow arranged?

(This is just a portion of the chapter on our moon)

Metaxas, Eric. Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life (Kindle Locations 705-706). Penguin Publishing Group

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