Transit of Mercury and Venus

Let us understand the important astronomical event - Transit with the help of a model.

This is a desktop version about four planets of our solar system.

It simulates the relative speed of the planets.

Mercury completes one revolution around the SUN with two rotations of the handle. During this time, Venus moves 0.39 revolution, Earth 0.24 revolutions and Mars 0.12 revolutions.

In astronomy,a transit occurs when one object in the sky appears to cross the face of another.
Analogous to the eclipse we observe on Earth except the shadow part.

Let us remove Venus and Mars for now.

If I rotate the planets enough, at one point we can see mercury between the Sun and Earth.

This event is known as Transit of Mercury. As can be seen in this photograph, During a transit, Mercury appears as a tiny black dot moving across the Sun as the planet obscures a small portion of the solar disk.

This is identical to the actual position of the planets when real transit occurs.

During one revolution of Earth, Mercury completes approx. 4 revolutions.

That means, it passes through earth and Sun 4 times in a span of one year.

Do we get four transits in a year ?

Not really.

To know why let us take help of an online model - Solar System Scope.

It's a great place to know so many things about our solar system.

Nov 11 2019 was the latest date on which a transit of mercury occurred. We can set it here.

Mercury appears in front of the Sun as seen from the Earth.

Let us fast forward. Orbit of Mercury is slightly tilted with respect to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. very similar to the tilted orbit of the moon around the Earth. That means there are only two points where orbits are aligned. That alignment happens only 13 or 14 times in a century, in May or November. Now you know why transit of Mercury does not happen that often.

Now let us remove Mercury and place Venus back.

With an orbit inclined by 3.4° relative to the Earth's,Transit of Venus is a very rare event.

It occurred on 5th and 6th June 2012 and will occur again only in the next century i.e. on 10 and 11th of December in 2117.

With the help of an online Model you can view past as well as future transits of Mercury as well as Venus.

Let us explore similar astronomical events in the next video.

Thank You.

#astronomy
#transit
#mercury
#venus

[pushpasaxena]

आपने बहुत ही अच्छी तरह से समझाया है धन्यवाद आपको

[deepakkumarkoshta]

How much the cost of gear model of solar system. From where it can be purchased