A transit occurs when the Sun, the planet (in this case Mercury) and the Earth are aligned and in that order. If Mercury and Earth orbits were in the same plane, we would see Mercury pass about 3 times a year. Every time they were in conjunction. But planets do not orbit exactly on the same plane, although planes are all very close. Thus, Mercury moves in a plane that forms 7 ° with the Ecliptic (plane corresponding to the Earth), so the coincidence is much smaller: only about 13 times per century.

So every Transit of Mercury when we observe the passage of this planet in front of the Sun, is rarely seen, but it is possible. This November, the transit has been visible in its entirety from South and Central America, eastern North America, the Atlantic, the western end of Africa, including the Canary Islands (Spain).

The transit in images

In the following image and in the 4K Video of NASA the movement of Mercury is appreciated. By studying this images one can only think of two things:

• How small we are in this Universe
• How difficult it is to find planets around other stars …

And as a conclusion, taking into account the size of the Universe and that we have already discovered more than 4000 exoplanets so far since the first one was discovered there in 1990, we realize the huge advances made been made in astrophysics. And there is more to discover….

The video was recorded by the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory, which allows capturing the sun using different wavelengths of light. Source: NASA

La entrada Transit of Mercury se publicó primero en AstroLaPalma.

History

After years in the drawing boards of the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, in 1994 GRANTECAN SA when it was founded, with the aim of designing and building the world’s largest telescope: the Gran Telescopio Canarias. Subsequently, agreements were signed with the Government of Mexico, for two of their universities to participate in the project and also joined as a partner the United States, through the University of Florida. The telescope cost no less than 130 million euros and has an annual budget of nearly 9 million Euros.

The construction of the telescope at the Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos on the island of La Palma, began in 2000 and the start of the science phase began operating in March 2009. The telescope time is shared by Spanish scientists (90%), Mexico (5%) and the U.S. (5%), the same percentage who contributed to the initial project.

Curiosities

• We can compare the power of sight of the telescope to four million human eyes. It could distinguish the headlights of a car at about 20,000 miles away.
• The metal structure of the dome is assembled with screws 16,000 and 43,000 metal nuts.
• The mirrors are cleaned with powdered snow made of carbon dioxide. There are 6 spare mirrors.
• GTC employs about 65 people or so (about 45 on the island of La Palma alone). There are 4 working groups: maintenance, science, management and development.
• Any day between 10-20 people are working on the telescope, the rest work in offices remotely. However, at night, despite its size, the telescope requires only 2 people to run observations: an astronomer and a technician. It’s all computerized.

Results

The Gran Telescopio de Canarias studies the nature of black holes, star and galaxy formation of a very young Universe. A fairly booming field developed here is the study of distant exoplanets (Planetary Transits) and very energetic events such as: very distant supernovae & black hole collisions.

See scientific publications derived from the Gran Telescopio de Canarias data by clicking here.

More about the other telescopes at the Observatory Roque de Los Muchachos can be found on the official website of the Observatory or at Telescopio Nazionale Galileo and William Herschel Telescope.

La entrada Gran Telescopio de Canarias se publicó primero en AstroLaPalma.