Talk:2971: Celestial Event

Unfortunately, this calculation doesn't account for the eventual end of total solar eclipses due to the tidal recession of the moon. 172.69.246.142 05:31, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

This is a great comment! Very much like something Randall would have written for title text. 172.71.146.49 05:58, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Are all of these events really statistically independent or are e.g. active northern lights and cicada mergence more or less likely to happen at the same time of the year?

This comic was published the same night that saw both the Perseids meteor shower and an unusually strong northern lights. Strangely, the omission of meteor showers in Randall's account of Celestial Events suggests that this is a coincidence. Mumiemonstret (talk) 11:43, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

One eclipse every 350 years is not "1/350" - that would imply the eclipse lasted the whole year. The numerator unit should be a minute or so, vastly changing the result.

There are competing factors with regard to the eclipse. Obviously total eclipses don't last for an entire year ^{[citation needed]}, but in the distant past when the Moon was significantly closer, they occurred much more frequently than once every 350 years. Far enough back, the moon was significantly larger in the sky and orbited much more rapidly making total solar eclipses a much more common event (even if nobody with eyes was around to see). Using constants for probabilities when things have significant variation is tricky. Galeindfal (talk) 14:26, 13 August 2024 (UTC)