Venus Transit in Ultra High Definition

[Dave Lane]

I stuck this in the Science is Cool thread but it really deserves its own thread. If you didn't see the Transit yesterday see it in full blown awesomeness here.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by mlyonsd

I watched a very good NOVA a couple months back about the sun.

It is amazing how dense it is. According to NOVA, the reaction that starts deep down in the core of the sun which you eventually see as light started about the time of the last ice age. It takes that long for the reaction to make it to the surface and travel the last 9 minutes or whatever it is.

Yeah that was a good episode. Tripped me out that because of the violent internal activity the sun actually flips magnetic poles every few months.

[Fish]

Amazing facts about the Sun... From the Science thread...

Around a trillion neutrinos from the Sun will pass through your body while you read this sentence.

The Sun is one among the 200 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy.

The Sun is one among the 6000 stars, which is visible to naked eye from the Earth.

The mass of Sun is 2 trillion trillion trillion tons.

The Sun's energy output is 386 billion billion megawatt.

The Earth receives 94 billion megawatts of energy from Sun. This is equivalent to 40,000 times the power requirement of United states.

The reaction taking place in Sun is nuclear fusion, same as a Hydrogen bomb.

Each second 700 million tons of Hydrogen are converted to 695 million tons of Helium and 5 million tons of energy in the form of gamma rays.

Each second the Sun loses 5 million tons of material.

The Sun's temperature at its core is 14 million Kelvin.

The pressure at the Sun's core is 340 billion times the pressure at the Earth's atmosphere.

The density of matter at the Sun's core is about 150 times the density of water in the Earth.

It takes up to 50 million years for the energy produced at the core of the Sun to reach its surface.

If the Sun were to stop producing energy today, it would take 50 million years for significant effects to be felt at Earth.

If a drop sized matter from the core of the Sun is placed on the surface of the Earth, no living organism will survive for a distance of 150 km from that drop.

The diameter of Sun is equivalent to the diameter of 109 earths.

The surface area of Sun is equivalent to that of 11990 earths.

The volume of Sun is equivalent to the volume of 1.3 million earths.

If the Sun were the size of a beach ball then Jupiter would be the size of a golf ball and the Earth would be as small as a pea.

The gravity at the surface of Sun is 28 times that of Earth.

A man weighing 60 kg in the Earth will weigh 1680 kg in the Sun.

The Sun makes up 99.86% of the mass of the solar system.

Unlike the Earth, the Sun is completely gaseous, there is no solid surface on the Sun.

By weight, Sun comprises of 73% hydrogen, 25% helium, 1.5% carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, and 0.5% all other elements.

By volume, Sun comprises of 92.1% hydrogen, 7.8% helium and 0.1% all other elements.

The Sun is at a mean distance of 149.60 million km from Earth.

The light takes 8.3 minutes to travel from the Sun to Earth.

The Sun's gravitational pull is so strong that, even Pluto, a planet 5.9 billion kilometer away from Sun, is kept in it's orbit.

Escape velocity of any planet or star is the velocity required for any object to escape from the gravitational pull of that planet or star. The escape velocity of the Sun is 2.22 million km/hr.

The light takes 5.5 hours to travel from the Sun to Pluto, the outer most planet.

Proxima Centauri (Alpha Centauri C) is the star nearest to Sun. It is 4.3 light years away from Sun.

If our Sun were just an inch in diameter, the nearest star would be 445 miles away.

The Sun rotates about it's own axis once every 25.38 days.

The Sun exhibits differential rotation. The rotation period in the equator is about 25 days, whereas in the polar regions it is as high as 36 days.

The Sun orbits around the center of our Milky Way galaxy once every 240 million years.

The Sun is at a distance of 30,000 light years from the center of our Milky Way galaxy and lies on one of it's spiral arms.

The Sun along with the Solar family is orbits around our Milky Way galaxy at a velocity of 217 km/s.

The Sun has circled the Milky Way galaxy for about 20 times only since it's formation.

In addition to heat and light, the Sun also emits electrons and protons, known as the solar wind which travels at a speed of 450 km/sec.

Around a trillion neutrinos from the Sun will pass through your body while you read this sentence.

Solar flares are violent explosions taking place in the Sun's atmosphere occasionally. Solar flares can reach more than 100,000 miles away from the sun.

Sunspots appear as dark spots on the surface of the Sun. Sunspots are the intense magnetic regions of Sun with magnetic field strengths thousands of times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field.

Every eleven years, the magnetic poles of the Sun switch. This cycle is called "Solarmax".

The luminosity of the Sun is equivalent to the luminosity of 4 trillion trillion light bulbs of 100 watt.

All the coal, oil, gas, and wood on Earth would only keep the Sun burning for a few days.

An area of the Sun's surface the size of a postage stamp shines with the power of 1,500,000 candles.

The energy being emitted from 1 square centimeter of the Sun's surface is enough to burn 64 light bulbs of 100 watt.

The amount of the Sun's energy reaching the Earth's atmosphere (known as the Solar constant) is equivalent to 1.37 kw of electricity per square meter.

The amount of energy reaching the earth's surface from Sun is 6,000 times the amount of energy used by all human beings worldwide.

The total amount of fossil fuel used by humans since the first civilization is equivalent to less than 30 days of energy reaching the earth's surface from Sun.

If the sun stopped shining, all living organisms in the Earth would freeze to death, the tropics would be as cold as the poles, and the 7 seas would turn to solid ice.

In Spit Bergen, Norway at one time of the year the sun shines continuously for three and a half months.

At one time of the year, for 186 days you can not see the Sun in the North Pole of Earth.

Solar eclipses are visible in a narrow path, a maximum of 269 km wide.

No Total solar eclipse can last longer than 7 minutes and 40 seconds.

At any place on the Earth, a Total solar eclipse occur on an average of once every 360 years.

A maximum of 5 Solar eclipses only can occur in an year.

Among the Sun and the Moon, which one is larger, when viewed from our Earth ? Both are almost similar sized, when viewed from the Earth. Since the orbits of both Moon and Earth are elliptical, at certain times the Moon will be larger than the Sun and at certain other times the Sun will be larger than the Moon.

The age of Sun is 4.57 billion years.

The expected life time of Sun is another 5 billion years or so.

After 1.1 billion years from now, the Sun will be 10 % more brighter than today. The Earth's atmosphere will completely dry out as water vapour is lost to space.

After 3.5 billion years from now, the Sun will be 40 % more brighter than today. The oceans will evaporate into space and it means the end of all forms of terrestrial life.

After 5.4 billion years from now, the Sun's core will run out of Hydrogen.

After 7.7 billion years from now, the Sun will become a Red giant. It will expand by 200 times and it will engulf the planet Mercury.

After 7.9 billion years from now, the Sun will become a White dwarf. The orbital radius of other planets, including the Venus and the Earth will be almost double that of today.

The Sun will remain as a White dwarf indefinitely after 7.9 billion years.

[mlyonsd]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

After 3.5 billion years from now, the Sun will be 40 % more brighter than today. The oceans will evaporate into space and it means the end of all forms of terrestrial life.

And the Chiefs still will not have drafted another QB in the first round.


Somebody had to say it.

[Direckshun]

Crazy to think Venus is the size of earth. That's basically what we look like in the face of the sun.

[Huffmeister]

It may have been explained in the other thread, but why does it appear to move up and down as it moves across in the very first clip? Some kind of composite imaging from multiple satellite angles?

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Huffmeister

It may have been explained in the other thread, but why does it appear to move up and down as it moves across in the very first clip? Some kind of composite imaging from multiple satellite angles?

Your mom was working out....

[ThaVirus]

The Earth receives 94 billion megawatts of energy from Sun. This is equivalent to 40,000 times the power requirement of United states.

Scientists, get on that..

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

I wonder if NASA realizes there's a huge forest fire going on on the Sun. Somebody needs to report this. Surely I'm not the only one to notice.

[vailpass]

TBH the video in the OP looks like it was put together as an SNL skit.
There are many many fascinating, visually stunning still shots and videos of our solar system and universe. This wasn't one of them.

[Dave Lane]

Originally Posted by Huffmeister

It may have been explained in the other thread, but why does it appear to move up and down as it moves across in the very first clip? Some kind of composite imaging from multiple satellite angles?

I would guess they switched from various earth based observatories but not really sure. The 1st one is that way the others are far more even.

[Dave Lane]

Originally Posted by Huffmeister

It may have been explained in the other thread, but why does it appear to move up and down as it moves across in the very first clip? Some kind of composite imaging from multiple satellite angles?

That was due to the fact the the TRACE low earth orbit satellite took that composite of shots. TRACE is actually
looking for flares and CMEs on the solar surface. Venus "disturbed" the sensors and that is why it appears to track
across the sun in a sinusoidal motion. I think you can find this explanation as a more technical discussion on
the NASA site regarding the Venus transit and TRACE.

[Huffmeister]

Cool, thanks for the explanation!

[Lzen]

Very cool. Thanks, Dave.

[Fish]

As its June 6 2012 transit begins Earth's sister planet crosses the edge of the Sun in this stunning view from the Hinode spacecraft. The timing of limb crossings during the rare transits was used historically to triangulate the distance to Venus and determine a value for the Earth-Sun distance called the astronomical unit. Still, modern space-based views like this one show the event against an evocative backdrop of the turbulent solar surface with prominences lofted above the Sun's edge by twisting magnetic fields. Remarkably, the thin ring of light seen surrounding the planet's dark silhouette is sunlight refracted by Venus' thick atmosphere.

[pr_capone]

An even more HD pic of the transit!