Earth transit from Mars

How often would a Martian observor be able to observe an Earth transit? How
visible would the Earth be from there, and how well would the Moon show up?

Matt J. McCullar asked:

How often would a Martian observor be able to observe an Earth transit?
How visible would the Earth be from there, and how well would the Moon
show up?


In his book _Transits_, Jean Meeus lists 47 such events over a
3000-year span, a mean interval of about 64 Earth years between
occurrences.

If the transit happened during a mid-range opposition of Mars, the
Earth's silhouette would appear about 34 arcseconds across, the Moon's
about 9 arcseconds. Furthermore, the two dots would never be more
than 18 arcminutes apart. So if the transit track is not well centered,
it may not be possible for both orbs to be seen simultaneously on the
20-arcminute-wide Sun.

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Mark Gingrich San Leandro, California

On Fri, 11 Jun 2004 04:57:32 GMT, "Matt J. McCullar"
wrote:

How often would a Martian observor be able to observe an Earth transit? How
visible would the Earth be from there, and how well would the Moon show up?


Hi,

there are some images here
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/satcom_transits

Long time to download because there are big Gif animation !

@+