Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Transit of Venus

Venus will pass directly between the Earth & Sun today. I don't happen to own a humongous telescope and the means of converting the images to a web stream so below is a viewer embedded from The Mauna Loa Observatory on Hawaii via The Exploratorium.


Transit of Venus | exploratorium.edu/venus


This link explains all the science stuff.  http://www.exploratorium.edu/venus/question1.html

...and if you don't want to watch all seven hours of the playback with commentary, here is a time-lapse of the event  in the 171 wavelength. From NASA,
"This channel is especially good at showing coronal loops - the arcs extending off of the Sun where plasma moves along magnetic field lines. The brightest spots seen here are locations where the magnetic field near the surface is exceptionally strong."

2 comments:

  1. True,

    Thanks for posting this. Wouldn't have checked it out otherwise and it is pretty cool stuff.

    Pixie

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  2. Just think how much better the view would have been if it wasn't for one roadworker and his backhoe.

    http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/world/tracking-venus-flight-a-once-in-251-year-event/story-e6frea8l-1226382799840

    NASA is missing out on Venus's once-in-a-lifetime transit of the Sun because a roadworker severed a Telstra wire in the Northern Territory.

    The incident happened yesterday afternoon near Mataranka and has cut many Northern Territory Telstra customers south of the town - including Alice Springs and Tennant Creek.

    About 2000 "bay stations" are out of action in the NT - cutting landlines, mobile, and internet services.

    But Telstra spokeswoman Jane DeGault said: "The reason Alice is upset about it is because they're transmitting to NASA because they are in the best position in the world to see it," she said.

    "They are understandably upset."

    "Let's hope these services will be restored and some transmission can be sent to NASA."

    But Telstra spokeswoman Jane DeGault said the repair work was hoped to be finished at about 3pm. But Venus is expected to finish it's transit at 2.03pm.

    ReplyDelete