Sun-Earth Day 2007 presents: Living in the Atmosphere of the Sun
2006 Mercury Transit
2006 Webcast Description
On November 8th 2006, a rare crossing of the planet Mercury across the face of the sun will take place for observers in North and South America, Australia, and parts of Asia. This celestial event will be captured via a LIVE WEBCAST focusing on the science, technology, and history of the transit, as well as our most current knowledge of the Sun and space weather.
How to view the Webcast
The Transit of Mercury Webcast is being hosted by the NASA Digital Learning Network. From their home page just choose the Transit of Mercury feature. On the information page you will find many activities and lesson plans.
Webcast Air Time:
- Start: 1:30 ET
- End: 2:30 ET
Webcast Content:
During the webcast we will feature:
- A panel of scientists live from NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center with an additional panel of educators and amateur astronomer live from Langley Research Center.
- 2 NASA Explorer Schools will be connected for live interaction-questions and answers.
- A telescope 'safety viewing' demonstration with instructions on how to view the transit using a classroom solarscope.
- Live images of the transit from 2 NASA satellites, SOHO and TRACE.
- Live ground based images from Kitt Peak and Hawaii!
Note from SOHO:
LASCO C3 will begin seeing Mercury in its field of view beginning on Nov. 5. It will be pretty bright. It disappears from our view on Nov. 12. Incidentally, there will be Venus and Mars in the frames as well and on Nov. 11-12, a 4th planet will appear (4 TOTAL) when Jupiter appears. This is only the 2nd time that SOHO has seen 4 planets at once. The easiest way to view the LASCO images will is with the Sun-Earth Viewer.
Observing the Transit and Background Information:
- http://www.astrosociety.org/education/publications/tnl/69/mercury.html
- http://www.venus-transit.de/TransitObserver/index.html
- http://analyzer.depaul.edu/paperplate/Transit%20of%20Venus/Introduction.htm
- http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/transit/indexTransit.html
- http://www.exploratorium.edu/transit/
- http://www.zoomschool.com/subjects/astronomy/planets/venus/transit.shtml
- http://space.com/searchforlife/seti_mercury_transit_061005.html
- http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_transits_030904.html
- http://www.astrosociety.org/education/publications/tnl/69/mercury.html
Activities, Creating Transit Models:
- http://kepler.nasa.gov/ed/pdf/TransitActivity.pdf
- http://www3.gettysburg.edu/~marschal/clea/Transitlab.html
- http://connect.larc.nasa.gov/programs/2003-2004/venus/Venus_Transit.pdf
Historical Connections:
- http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/venus/Vtime.html
- http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/venus/Vyears.html
- http://www.transitofvenus.org/educ.htm
Mathematics:
- http://www.transitofvenus.org/scimath.htm
- http://www.exploratorium.edu/venus/teacher-model2.html
- http://www.exploratorium.edu/venus/teacher_downloads/questions-activity.pdf
Other Mercury Transit Links:
- Hawaii: http://astroday.net/MercTransit06.html
- 2006 Transit of Mercury: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/OH/transit06.html
- Kepler Mission - Transit of Mercury: http://kepler.nasa.gov/ed/sstransits.html
- Hot Shots from SOHO-The 2003 Mercury Transit http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/2003_05_07/
