Solar eclipses are slowly disappearing, and there’s nothing we can do about it
“But there’s a law of nature — something that’s conserved — that tells us if Earth’s rotation is slowing down, something else needs to happen to compensate for it. That law is the conservation of angular momentum, and the thing that compensates is that as the Earth’s spin slows down, the Moon spirals farther and farther out from Earth! And the farther away the Moon gets, the smaller its angular size, and thus the smaller it appears in the sky. As time goes on, more and more of the solar eclipses will be annular rather than total, as the Moon’s size will appear insufficient to block out the Sun.”My first piece contributing to Forbes, bringing some awesome science to a new audience!
Yes, this is, of course, true. It’s a natural consequence of our Moon having been formed by a Mars-sized body impacting the proto-Earth. It has been receding ever since it formed. However, as the author of the above, linked, article points out, total solar eclipses will still be around for a few hundred million years. By the time the last one happens (assuming our species hasn’t killed itself off), we will be as different from how we are today, as our ancient ancestors were when they first started walking upright.