The Mercury Transit in 2016
- Paper number
IAC-15,E1,IP,6,x28716
- Author
Mr. Joe Zender, European Space Research and Technology Centre, ESA-ESTEC, The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Dr. Johannes Benkhoff, European Space Agency (ESA), The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Dr. David Rothery, Open University, United Kingdom
- Coauthor
Mrs. Ranpal Gill, European Space Agency (ESA), Spain
- Coauthor
Mrs. Santa Martinez, ISDEFE/ESA, Spain
- Coauthor
Dr. Bernhard Fleck, European Space Agency (ESA), United States
- Year
2015
- Abstract
People across most of the globe will have a chance to witness Mercury’s next solar transit, 11:12-18:42 UT, Monday 9 May 2016 . The presented efforts aim to allow a multitude of observers from on-ground and in-flight to share their data before, during and after the transit event with a larger audience. As audience we target the public in general, but also schools and amateur clubs around the world, that will be provided with formatted data and guidelines how to process and repeat the calculations that scientists in previous generations brought large insights into the Solar System. Occurring a year after the end of the MESSENGER mission and a few months before the launch of BepiColombo, this transit (the first since 2006) will be an ideal occasion to draw the public’s attention to the science goals of those missions, to showcase what we have recently learned about Mercury, and to draw attention to the conundrums that make Mercury such a fascinating object to study.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)