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The transit method can be used to discover exoplanets. As a planet eclipses/transits its host star it will block a portion of the light from the star. If the planet transits in-between the star and the observer the change in light can be measured to construct a light curve. Light curves are measured with a charge-coupled device. The light curve ...
Planetary transits and occultations. In astronomy, planetary transits and occultations occur when a planet passes in front of another object, as seen by an observer. The occulted object may be a distant star, but in rare cases it may be another planet, in which case the event is called a mutual planetary occultation or mutual planetary transit ...
Astrology. Astrological transits are one of the main means used in horoscopic astrology to forecast future trends and developments (the other means used is astrological progression, which progresses the horoscope forward in time according to set methods). As its name implies, astrological transits involve a method of interpreting the ongoing ...
A transit of Venus takes place when Venus passes directly between the Sun and the Earth (or any other superior planet), becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a transit, Venus is visible as a small black circle moving across the face of the Sun. Transits of Venus reoccur periodically.
A transit of Mercury across the Sun takes place when the planet Mercury passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet. During a transit, Mercury appears as a tiny black dot moving across the Sun as the planet obscures a small portion of the solar disk. Because of orbital alignments, transits viewed from Earth occur in May or November.
The first known planet to be discovered with the transit method was OGLE-TR-56b. The first planetary transit observed (by already known exoplanet) was caused by HD 209458 b. The most massive transiting exoplanet is KELT-1b which masses 27.23 M J (making it a brown dwarf) while the least massive is Kepler-42d which masses less than 0.003 M J or ...
PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) is a space telescope under development by the European Space Agency for launch in 2026. [4] The mission goals are to search for planetary transits across up to one million stars, and to discover and characterize rocky extrasolar planets around yellow dwarf stars (like the Sun), subgiant stars, and red dwarf stars.
In astronomy, a syzygy (/ ˈsɪzədʒi / SIZ-ə-jee; from Ancient Greek συζυγία (suzugía) 'union, yoke') [1] is a roughly straight-line configuration of three or more celestial bodies in a gravitational system. [2] The word is often used in reference to the Sun, Earth, and either the Moon or a planet, where the latter is in conjunction ...