The "diamond ring" effect is seen toward the end of a total solar eclipse, as the Moon just begins to reveal the Sun's bright surface (photosphere) at the end of totality. This eclipse was photographed from Bolivia on 3 November 1994 (Image: Reverend Ronald Royer / SPL)
It is one of the most glorious pieces of natural theatre. Assuming you spend your life on the same part of the Earth's surface, you might witness it once - if you are particularly lucky or very long-lived, perhaps twice. But a total solar eclipse is worth the wait. At the height of totality, the fit of sun and moon is so perfect that beads of sunlight can only penetrate to us through the rugged valleys on the lunar surface, creating the stunning "diamond ring" effect.
It is all thanks to a striking coincidence. The sun is about 400 times as wide as the moon, but it is also 400 times further away. The two therefore look the same size in the sky - a unique situation among our solar system's eight planets and 166 known moons. Earth is also the only planet to harbour life. Pure coincidence?
Almost undoubtedly, say most astronomers. But perhaps it is not so much of one as the bare numbers suggest. Our moon is different. The many moons of the large outer planets - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune - are thought to have originated through one of two processes: from the accretion of a disc of material in the planet's gravity field, in a miniature version of the formation of the solar system's planets, or through the later gravitational capture of passing small bodies. The second possibility is also thought to account for Mars's two small satellites, Deimos and Phobos, the only other moons in the inner solar system.
But our moon is simply too big relative to Earth's own size to have formed easily by either of these processes. Planetary scientists believe there can be only one explanation: in the first 100 million years of the solar system, when unattached debris was still zinging around the inner solar system, a Mars-sized object smashed into Earth. That impact radically remodelled our planet, expelling a huge amount of debris that eventually congealed into our oversized moon.
And here's the best bit. Such a big moon is a big boon for life on Earth. As Earth spins on its own axis, it has a natural tendency to wobble, owing to the varying pull on it from other bodies such as the sun. The unseen hand of the moon's gravity gently damps that wobble, preventing rotational instabilities which would otherwise have caused dramatic changes in Earth's climatic zones over time. Such instabilities would have made it much more tricky for life to get started on our planet.
Earth's position in the "habitable zone" around the sun where liquid water is abundant is undoubtedly the single most important factor in its fecundity. But the presence of a large moon - one large enough to cause total eclipses - might also have been crucial. If so, that has important consequences for the search for life on other planets.
Since the impact that created it, the moon has been moving steadily away from us, currently about 3.8 centimetres per year. The dinosaurs did not see eclipses like we do: the moon was too close 200 million years ago, more than big enough in the sky to block out the entire sun. Equally, any occupants of Earth in a couple of hundred million years' time will not see total eclipses at all, as the moon will appear too small.
Our luck seems the result of two coincident timescales: that of the recession of an impact-formed moon, and that for the evolution of intelligent life. If you should be fortunate enough to experience a total eclipse in your lifetime, consider this intriguing possibility: that large moon might be the reason you are there.
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