h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just watched the total eclipse on Sky News, a spectacle as awesome as ever!
Who else noticed the solar flare on the right-hand side?
It must have been hundreds of miles long!

I saw it on the BBC site - did I get a buzz when the diamond flared just before total eclipse. Amazing!

Oh, god, I wanted to be there. I promised myself to be in Madagascar or Zimbabwe RIGHT NOW.

But Real Life bitched that one up for me....

Howling in the darkness, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

a*cB

I've seen a couple of total eclipses, they are all beautiful in their on way. (kind of like women)

Mostly

Yeah, right.

(And did the sky go dark for you, too, darling?)

a cynic called Ben

Love you really, Mostly.
You know that.



a*cB

I for one have never really seen the point of flocking to see a total eclipse.

Aside from the obvious humour to be derived from watching the followers of Nostradamus who inevitably begin running round and flapping their arms whenever it goes prematurely dark, I've always thought it a bit pointless.

I mean, do people flock to the beach to watch an especially high neap tide?

Perhaps it's just me, but as long as it continues going dark every night then I'll fail to see the attraction of watching it go dark slighly earlier. And then getting light again. Before it gets properly dark and you go to bed.

Well the first eclipse I saw blew my mind.

The only experiences I can compare it with are being with my sister when she had her daughter and being with my father when he died.

a*cB

Hi Ben,

Yes, all that blood rushing from/to my head cause my eyes to dim.

Mostly

A high neap tide might be worth seeing, since they are very rare! (Neap tides are the small ones, it is *spring* tides that are worth seeing).

In the north of Norway, there is a place called Saltstraumen where people flock to watch the tide coming in. On a good day, a giant whirlpool is formed, occasionally even emitting groaning noises. The tide coming in at Mont St Michel in Brittany is also worth seeing, as it comes in from a distance of about 9 kilometres.

Ben, I thought you were a cynic!

Isn't it amazing that if the moon were just a little closer to us, or a little bit further away from us, we wouldn't see what we see when there is a solar eclipse?

One of the worst rainstorms of the summer happened at the time of the 1999 eclipse, so I saw nothing... . Some day...

CR

Or even better: If the moon was just a little closer (and a little faster) then the tide would come in as though a fat man had suddenly sat down heavily in the bath. And the retreating tide would shoot off as though it was late for an appointment or something.

By the way, I have no grasp of physics whatsoever.

Does it show?

'ALL' that blood, Mostly?
I am a nice girl, and will refrain from asking just how much, exactly!



a*cB

AGB, that solar flare would have been bigger than the Earth.

*Feels small*

And I can't believe anyone can say an eclipse is not impressive

Mostly

Yes, I realize that.
{about the flare}
The corona is stunning.
It's easy to say once you've seen one, you've seen them all, but it is quite a moving event.
I find the fact that the moon and sun appear to be the same size from our vantage point, quite amazing.
A cosmic coincidence?
Our treat.
A miracle that we even evolved at all, if you consider that if the Earth's orbit were 2 degrees inside the Earth would've been too hot to have supported life, or two degrees outside and it would've been too cold.
Another cosmic coincidence.

~AGB~
(*
*courtesy of Argon0

Here I would like to use my freedom of speech to go "DUH!". How do you know what temperatures that are needed to support life? We only have the example of Earth, and there life is like it is because it is build to work under the conditions we have.

But back to the topic, there was an eclipse today? I knew there should be one this year(or next year) but I didn´t know it was this year. I was down watching it in France last year. Impressive but far from as impressive as I would imagine agcb experienced the birth of her niece.

If the moon looked bigger, the eclipse wouldn´t look all that nice. But if it was smaller it would still look pretty cool. And the fun with an eclipse isn´t that it goes dark sooner(Even though it looks cool to watch it rolling in) but watching the suns corona play on the night sky. I would like to see a tide in one of those places where there is 10 meters difference between flood and tide though. Especially from above. Or to try running from the tide, even though that is probably impossible.

Maybe I should have stated "Human Life"
I apologize most sincerely.

~AGB~
(*
*courtesy of Argon0*

p.s. The total solar ecipse was in Africa. DUH!

Well, if this planet hadn´t been able to sustain human life this site would just have been build by racoons instead.

Or mice