Mercury to hotfoot it across the face of the Sun - space - 03 November 2006 - New Scientist Space

A rare passage of Mercury in front of the Sun as seen from Earth will
take place on Wednesday, 8 November. The last time such a transit of
Mercury occurred was in 2003 and it will not reoccur until 2016.

Mercury will appear as a tiny black circle just 1/200th the width of
the Sun. It will take almost five hours for Mercury's orbital motion to
carry it completely across the Sun from Earth's point of view.

More at http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn10436

" wrote:
A rare passage of Mercury in front of the Sun as seen from Earth will
take place on Wednesday, 8 November.

The event will last from about 3 hours after sunset until just after
midnight.


Best,
Stephen

Remove footfrommouth to reply

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"Stephen Tonkin" wrote in message
...
" wrote:
A rare passage of Mercury in front of the Sun as seen from Earth will
take place on Wednesday, 8 November.

The event will last from about 3 hours after sunset until just after
midnight.


Yet *another* reason we Aussies have to feel smug about where we live _and_
the *only* reason to be grateful for the current drought.

First contact: 6:12am, sun is 4° high
Fourth contact: 11:09am, sun is 64° high

--
Jeff R.

In message om,
" writes
A rare passage of Mercury in front of the Sun as seen from Earth will
take place on Wednesday, 8 November. The last time such a transit of
Mercury occurred was in 2003 and it will not reoccur until 2016.

Mercury will appear as a tiny black circle just 1/200th the width of
the Sun. It will take almost five hours for Mercury's orbital motion to
carry it completely across the Sun from Earth's point of view.

More at http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn10436


Judging by the times in Fred Espenak's page at
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/OH/transit06.html this is the
only one before 2052 (when I will be a centenarian !) _not_ visible from
the UK :-)

wrote:
A rare passage of Mercury in front of the Sun as seen from Earth will
take place on Wednesday, 8 November. The last time such a transit of
Mercury occurred was in 2003 and it will not reoccur until 2016.

Mercury will appear as a tiny black circle just 1/200th the width of
the Sun. It will take almost five hours for Mercury's orbital motion to
carry it completely across the Sun from Earth's point of view.

More at http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn10436

On Wednesday,the orbital motion of Mercury travelling faster and in an
inner orbital circuit will approach and overtake the slower moving
orbital motion of the Earth -

http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Solar/action?sys=-Si

It affirms the basic Copernican principle that the motions of the
planets around the Sun are seen directly from an orbitally moving Earth
and demolishes the later mutations which are now dominant * and taint
and render the uncoming event as a dull and lifeless affair.

There is no mention of the precise time when the orbitally moving Earth
and the orbitally moving Mercury align with the central parent star
sometime close to 2 PM PST and as this is a purely orbital alignment
using the orbital moitions of Earth and Mercury it is with sadness that
the opportunity is lost to promote the reasoning of the great
heliocentric astronomers.Invariably the 'transit of Mercury' fades into
the geocentric idea of crossing the face of the Sun and blurring it
further by including the gerocentric terms of sunrise/sunset.

I had hoped that somebody could write an essay on the Wednesaday event
in orbital terms and as a way to show humanity the great Western
achievement where the motions of the Earth were split in two in order
to explain observations.The astronomically fleeting event on Wednesday
is now more crucial and vital to that heliocentric understanding which
is almost lost to history and celestial sphere geometers so in the
short time left it is up to people who genuin ely love astronomy to do
what they can to make this a sparkling experience for humanity rather
than simply a geocentric peep show.





* "For to the earth planetary motions appear sometimes direct,
sometimes stationary, nay, and sometimes retrograde. But from the sun
they are always seen direct.." Newton

"oriel36" wrote
[snip loquacious balderdash]

Oriel, you are a drut and a nuisance.

Your prose looks like English at first glance, but is in fact nearly
impossible to parse. You are second only to Guth in your tireless yet
tiresome monotony and nozzleheadedness.

You are clearly a very "special person".

Get help. And while you're doing that, cease posting here. No-one likes
you.

*Plonk*

Fleetie wrote:
"oriel36" wrote
[snip loquacious balderdash]

Oriel, you are a drut and a nuisance.

Your prose looks like English at first glance, but is in fact nearly
impossible to parse. You are second only to Guth in your tireless yet
tiresome monotony and nozzleheadedness.

You are clearly a very "special person".

Get help. And while you're doing that, cease posting here. No-one likes
you.

*Plonk*

On Wednesday ,Mercury will overtake the orbital motion of the Earth as
referenced from the center of planetary heliocentric motion,namely our
orbital motion using the center of our parent star as a reference.

It is probably the most exciting event in heliocentric astronomy with
modern imaging availible yet not one single item has appeared affirming
the principle that heliocentric orbital motions are seen from Earth.

The utter dullness with which you approach the upcoming event is second
only to the dullness of your response.It is because of what you turned
astronomy into that humanity will not notice the event on Nov 8th as a
clear affirmation of Copernican heliocentricity and a celebration of
Western astronomy.

Fleetie wrote:
"oriel36" wrote
[snip loquacious balderdash]

Oriel, you are a drut and a nuisance.

Your prose looks like English at first glance, but is in fact nearly
impossible to parse. You are second only to Guth in your tireless yet
tiresome monotony and nozzleheadedness.

You are clearly a very "special person".

Get help. And while you're doing that, cease posting here. No-one likes
you.

*Plonk*

You would need to be a very 'special' person on Nov 8th to ignore the
Copernican reasoning that the heliocentric motions of the planets are
seen directly from an orbitally moving Earth.

Now,I quite understand your love of Newton but my admiration for the
working methods and conclusions of the great Western astronomers such
as Copernicus,Kepler and Roemer require that the damaging Newtonian
mutations be untangled from the heliocentric principles that planetary
motions are seen from an orbitally moving Earth.

"For to the earth planetary motions appear sometimes direct, sometimes
stationary, nay, and sometimes retrograde. But from the sun they are
always seen direct.." Newton

The tragedy is that many people could easily see the event for what it
is using modern imaging but celestial sphere geometers will have their
way and it will fade into an intellectually weak and intuitively poor
event based on the 'passage of Mercury across the face of the Sun'.

Turn your faces to the ground on Wednesday for what will occur is for
those who celebrate the incredible experience of the Earth's orbital
motion moving slower than the faster moving Mercury.

In message om, Fri, 3
Nov 2006 12:38:50, " writes

A rare passage of Mercury in front of the Sun as seen from Earth will
take place on Wednesday, 8 November. The last time such a transit of
Mercury occurred was in 2003 and it will not reoccur until 2016.

Mercury will appear as a tiny black circle just 1/200th the width of
the Sun. It will take almost five hours for Mercury's orbital motion to
carry it completely across the Sun from Earth's point of view.

Doesn't that occur at night?

--
(c) John Stockton, Surrey, UK. Turnpike v6.05 MIME.
Web URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - FAQqish topics, acronyms & links;
Astro stuff via astron-1.htm, gravity0.htm ; quotings.htm, pascal.htm, etc.
No Encoding. Quotes before replies. Snip well. Write clearly. Don't Mail News.

In message id, Dr J R
Stockton writes
In message om, Fri,
3 Nov 2006 12:38:50, " writes

A rare passage of Mercury in front of the Sun as seen from Earth will
take place on Wednesday, 8 November. The last time such a transit of
Mercury occurred was in 2003 and it will not reoccur until 2016.

Mercury will appear as a tiny black circle just 1/200th the width of
the Sun. It will take almost five hours for Mercury's orbital motion to
carry it completely across the Sun from Earth's point of view.

Doesn't that occur at night?


Only if you're on this side of the Earth ;-)