Lunar Mysteries

On my sister’s birthday, February 26^th, 1979, a total solar eclipse occurred in the Pacific Northwest. Though I was rather young, it was a significant event in my life because it would be the last chance to view a total eclipse of the sun in the United States for almost four decades. [The next will be August 21, 2017.] It lasted but minutes, but it created a mystery that would endure the rest of my life – a mystery to me that is as profound as the question of whether there is a God, and just as impossible to answer.

You see, at this particular moment (give or take a million years) in Earth’s history – although the Sun’s diameter is about 400 times larger than that of the Moon – the Sun is also about 400 times farther away.  It is this fact which makes it so that the Sun and Moon appear the same size as seen from Earth, and is the reason why we on Earth can witness such an amazing spectacle as a total solar eclipse.

What are the odds of that? No one knows for sure, because no one knows how many planets and moons there are in the entire universe.  But, of the 893 planets Astronomers have discovered so far (as of June 21, 2013), this similarity appears to be unique.  In other words, this situation of sun and moon appearing the same size doesn’t occur on any other planet in our immediate neighborhood of space.

Is that just an amazing coincidence?  It’s possible. If that were the only mystery with regards to our moon, then maybe I could let it rest at that. However, this next one will really make your head spin…

Have you ever noticed that when you look at the Moon, you are always looking at the same side? In order for this to occur, the “dark side” or far side must remain permanently rotated away from our planet. But, how can that be?

We all know that the Earth orbits the sun, and that it rotates on its own axis once every 24 hours.  So, if you were standing on surface of the Sun, you would be allowed a full picture of the planet, with the same view once every 24 hours. Theoretically, the Moon should do something similar; but, we are limited instead to seeing only half of its surface. The reason for this particular phenomenon is because the Moon rotates at exactly the same speed as it orbits the Earth (once every 29.5 days.) Another unbelievable coincidence.

The odds of both of these “coincidences” occurring on the same planet are astronomical! But, if it wasn’t random chance that have caused these things to be, then what? Only God would know.