{"id":14056,"date":"2019-11-12T12:17:58","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T12:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=14056"},"modified":"2019-11-12T12:17:58","modified_gmt":"2019-11-12T12:17:58","slug":"open-university-scientists-marvel-at-the-rarity-of-the-mercury-transit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/science-mct\/open-university-scientists-marvel-at-the-rarity-of-the-mercury-transit\/","title":{"rendered":"Open University scientists marvel at the rarity of the Mercury Transit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Members of the Open University\u2019s space science community gathered together to watch a one-off celestial event on Monday 11 November.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Professor David Rothery and Jack Wright, research assistant, were joined by employees from across the campus to witness the Mercury Transit. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For the first time in three years, planet Mercury was visible as it travelled between the Sun and the Earth. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Scientists view first contact through specialist telescopes<\/h2>\n
\"\"

Professor Rothery at the Mercury Transit<\/p><\/div>\n

Scientists and researchers watched Mercury make first contact through specialist equipment, including telescopes and solar viewers, as it is far too dangerous to be viewed by the naked eye. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Over the course of six hours, Mercury – a small, circular, silhouette \u2013 made its way across the Sun\u2019s disk.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A rare occurrence, the transit will not be witnessed again until 2032.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking on the celestial event, Professor David Rothery, a leading expert on Mercury, said:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMercury takes 88 days to go around the Sun but its orbit is inclined to the Earth\u2019s orbit. So you only have the two orbits in the same space at particular times of the year \u2013 May and November. If when Mercury passes between the Earth and the Sun outside of May or November, it will pass above or below the Sun in the sky. Therefore, there\u2019s only a brief window to observe a transit.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been working for 15 years on the European Space Agency\u2019s <\/span><\/span>BepiColombo<\/span><\/a> mission, which was finally launched towards Mercury last year. So, it was great to see the silhouette of the planet that we are about to visit as it crosses the face of the Sun. It gave us a chance to tell people what a strange little world Mercury is.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On Thursday 14 November, Professor Rothery, along with colleague Carole Haswell, will be delivering an inaugural lecture on Discovering New Planets. David’s talk is: The puzzle of planet Mercury \u2013 why go there? Held in the Berrill Lecture Theatre, Open University, Milton Keynes, between 6pm and 8pm, the talks will be live-streamed for those who cannot make it in person.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For more on the inaugural lecture visit: <\/span><\/span>http:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/science\/physical-science\/events\/discovering-new-planets-inaugural-lecture-david-rothery-and-carole-haswell<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Members of the Open University\u2019s space science community gathered together to watch a one-off celestial event on Monday 11 November. Professor David Rothery and Jack Wright, research assistant, were joined by employees from across the campus to witness the Mercury Transit. For the first time in three years, planet Mercury was visible as it travelled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6041,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,16],"tags":[861,1418,1525,2081,2115,2259],"class_list":["post-14056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-mct","category-space","tag-faculty-of-stem","tag-mercury","tag-news-home","tag-space","tag-stem","tag-transit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}