What is the greatest coincidence on earth? It could be the man known only as Jim from Dover. Jim was on a days leave from work and walking along a country lane when he heard the phone ring in a public phone box. He answered it to be greeted by a familiar voice “Jim sorry to call you on your day off, this Julie from payroll.” After he picked himself off the floor he established that his colleague had rung his national insurance number by mistake, incredibly that just happened to be the same number as the payphone Jim was walking by.That’s good, but for me an even greater coincidence is this. The sun a star 865,000 miles across, and 93 million miles away looks, to us on earth, exactly the same size as our moon, a satellite 250,000 miles away and just 2,159 miles across. This extraordinary twist of fate has led to these two heavenly bodies becoming elevated to equal status as gods of the day and night. Occasionally if we are very fortunate this happenstance enables us to witness a unique (to our solar system) happening; a total eclipse of the sun.
