World first: ANIMATED GIF of Mercurian SUN ZOOM from MARS Ever wondered what on earth the Mars Rover Curiosity is actually doing all the way out there on the surface of the Red Planet? Staring into space, that's what. Whilst peering up at the stars last week, the car-sized nuclear powered prowler caught sight of the planet Mercury passing in front of the sun, representing the first …
Technically, it was the precession of the perihelion of Mercury that was one of the confirmations of General Relativity. Like the deflection of starlight passing close to the Sun, some precession was predicted by Newtonian physics, but the observed magnitude disagreed with the prediction (causing some 19th century astronomers to predict the existence of 'Vulcan' inside the orbit of Mercury).
I recall the 2004 transit better. Was at home, supposedly revising for exams, but as I had a few days till the next one and it was a gloriously sunny spell, opted to spend a happy few hours pointing a small telescope at the sun and plotting the transit across the piece of card that the telescope projected onto.
Dad had also thoughtfully provisioned a couple of layers of glass from a welding visor bonded together so you could safely observe it directly. Happy days.
...time a planetary transit has been viewed from the surface of anywhere but dear green earth.
The closest I could find to anything similar to this was the Kaguya (Selene) lunar explorer taking pics of the Earth during a penumbral lunar eclipse.
Cheers and thanks for (greatly) broadening our horizons!
I have enough trouble with the b****y MS Cloud animated adverts slowing mouse wheel scrolling to a crazed, jerky nightmare without anymore senseless animation.... I currently have to hunt down the offending tabs and close them before I can read the articles..grrrrr...
(The name's Meldrew, VIctor Meldrew.. )
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