Mercury’s dramatic movement across the front of the Sun was captured.
The European Space Agency (ESA) recently released images of the Sun and Mercury captured by the solar probe ‘Solar Orbiter’ through its official website.
The video was taken by the EUI (extreme ultraviolet imaging device) mounted on the ‘Solar Orbiter’. Taken precisely on January 3, the frame captures Mercury moving right of center against a background of hot atmosphere flowing across the surface of the Sun.
Mercury, which looks like a round shadow, orbits about 58 million km from the Sun on average. Astronomical observatories around the world also tend to capture this dramatic situation when Mercury travels between the Sun and the Earth.
An ESA official explained, “The phenomenon in which a celestial body crosses in front of another celestial body, such as Mercury passing through the sun, is called a transit.”
The transit method basically uses the motion of the planets between the stars and the Earth. If there is a planet B orbiting A between the star A and the Earth, there will be a moment when the light of A is slightly obscured when viewed from Earth. If this phenomenon is observed from time to time, it can be determined that B orbits around the main star A.
An ESA official said, “It is common for passages to be repeated several times with the same cycle.” “Observing the transit period of a planet or the luminosity curve of a star (a curve showing the luminosity of a celestial body that changes over time) indicates not only the orbital period of the planet, but also information such as diameter and the presence of an atmosphere can be obtained indirectly, ” he said.
In the case of Doppler spectroscopy, the phenomenon is used that the frequency and wavelength change according to the relative speed of the wave source and the observer. Stars and planets orbiting them attract each other with their gravitational pull, and exoplanets are seen through the tremors that occur in the stars according to the position of the planets.
Compared to Doppler spectroscopy, the transit method, which has advantages and disadvantages, was used by NASA’s ‘Kepler Telescope’, which ended in 2018. NASA’s ‘TES’ probe and ESA’s ‘CHEOPS’ space telescope are also looking for exoplanets using the transit method.
Reporter Jeong Ian anglee@sputnik.kr
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