Comment by savoyard
1 day ago
It is never a bad moment to mention this. For planets with a single moon, the probability of such an occurrence has been estimated at 4% [1]. I like to think that this is what extraterrestrials would find most fascinating about our world.
[1] https://medium.com/@asorlik/the-probability-of-total-solar-e...
It’s also transient. In a few million years, the Moon will have drifted far enough away that it cannot fully eclipse the sun. Long ago, the Moon was so close you wouldn’t have been able to clearly see the Sun’s corona during a total eclipse.
Over 600 million years left! Complex life may be gone by then (see silicate weathering).