Mercury transits across Sun on November 11, NASA shares footage of rare event

In a rare event, Mercury crossed between Earth and Sun, on vember 11, which was tracked by Solar Dynamics Observatory, a mission of National Aeronautics and ministration (NASA). observatory, which views Sun in a variety of wavelengths of light in extreme ultraviolet, tracked journey which will t occur again until 2032. transit lasted a little over 5.5 hours and ended after Mercury left disk of Sun but continued moving out through corona for ar 30 minutes.

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Kepler's vs Ptolemaic ory

Transits of only two planets can occur, Mercury and Venus, as y are only planets that orbit between Earth and Sun. According to Solar Dynamics Observatory, transits are important for two developments in astromy, to establish that Kepler's ory using ellipses for planetary orbits was better than Ptolemaic ory and fixing size of solar system. While Kepler was able to predict accurate time of transits by using ellipses to describe orbits, Ptolemaic ory using circular orbits did t have accuracy needed to do predict such events. 

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Success of Kepler's ideas

real triumph of Kepler’s calculation came in 1631 when, as per his prediction of Mercury transit, French astromer Pierre Gassendi watched a small black dot move across face of Sun from his Paris observatory on vember 7, 1631. Later, Venus transits were used to measure distance between Earth and Sun. NASA’s observatory said that vember 11 was day to celebrate success of Kepler’s ideas. 

“As we watch Mercury move across Sun, you could also remember our successes in using Kepler's ideas to slingshot Voyr craft through a Grand Tour of outer planets, or to use Venus to send Parker Solar Probe ever closer to Sun, or even incredible accuracy of GPS positions we take for granted as we move about in our everyday lives,” said Solar Dynamics Observatory.

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(With inputs from ncies)