"G=EMC^2 Glazier" wrote in message
...
Best picture I have of one is one taken by Professor Jeanette Stock in
Venezuela. It shows the uneven rays of light surrounding the black
Moon.(breath taking) Is the Moon a perfect size disk? Do the mountains
on the Moon have any effect? how much better could this total effect
be? what are the odds of size and distance creating such a great
blocking of the Sun? Bert


Well, Beeeert, let's first take a look at our Earth. It has a circumference
of 24,900 miles. The tallest mountain, Mt. Everest, is a mere 5.5 miles
high. This makes the Earth smoother than any bowling ball, billiard ball or
high-precision machined ball bearing ... for all practical purposes, it is a
perfectly smooth sphere.

The Moon has a circumference of appr. 1/4 of that of Earth, 6,790 miles.
Since the Moon is geologically dead and has been so for billions of years,
there are no mountains on the Moon, since there never was any tectonic plate
movement to create them. What appear to be mountains are merely different
shades of color on its surface. There are high crater rims, but I suspect
none exceeds even one mile in height, making the Moon just as smooth a
sphere as the Earth is. Because of its spin, the diameter at the equator is
somewhat bigger than its polar counterpart, due to the fact that the Moon
was in a molten state shortly after its creation, as a result of a glancing
blow administered to Earth by a rogue planet about the size of Mercury and
it solidified with that equatorial bulge. But nonetheless, it is extremely
smooth.