Total Eclipse Day 2024 has been on my phone calendar since I witnessed the 2017 total eclipse in Nashville, where a mean little cloud decided to park itself over our viewing spot just ten seconds before totality. Still, it was an amazing experience, and I counted the days to April 8, 2024.

I had much better luck in Dallas, despite more looming clouds.

Anticipation as the moon’s path crept across the sun. Totality. TOTALITY. Minutes of solemn darkness. A gorgeous corona and a sighting of a brilliantly red flare. Laying on the ground, absorbing it all.

I felt the immensity of the universe. I witnessed, first-hand, the movement of celestial bodies, usually just an academic/intellectual given, but rarely seen in such dramatic fashion.

It was ethereal. It was beautiful. It was emotional. Spiritual, even. 

As the midday dawn turned back to day, I loved reading the socials and seeing the eclipse through the emotions of fellow humans, reflecting on beauty and immensity and their smallness in the universe.

Aside from the few (but inevitable) end-times or moral-decay-warning interpretations of the eclipse, many found a religious message in the event:

“The perfect distance between the earth, moon, and sun is the result of a divine, perfect plan for creation.” 

“The moon, any closer or further away would not stay in position. It all points to the Creator.”

And here’s where the science educator in me bristles, puts on a dinosaur dress, and fires up the Magic School Bus.

That is simply not correct. 

The moon was far, far closer to earth in the past. At the time of the moon’s formation, it was only 14,000 miles from earth. The moon that obscured the sun on Eclipse Day is 240,000 miles from us. And the moon continues to retreat – at the rate of 1.5 inches every year. 

The Apollo astronauts left mirrors on the surface of the moon. We can calculate the rate of retreat by firing lasers at the mirrors and timing the return trips. 

So much for a singular “perfect” distance between earth and moon, established by a divine, perfect plan. 

Why, then, is our moon inching away from us? Was it something we said?

The moon’s gravity tugs on the earth’s oceans as it makes its orbit. We feel this “tug” in the form of rising and falling tides. But – the earth’s gravity likewise pulls on the moon, speeding up the moon’s orbit. This bit of increased speed powers the moon’s retreat. 

Stand in awe of the universe: it’s awe-some. But we walk on shaky ground when we attempt to find “proofs” of God in what we don’t understand or what is not yet known.