'Dear friends of science and ASTRONOMY,

2006 Transit of Mercury will not be visible in India except most eastern
states of INDIA.





2006: Mark your calendar: On Wednesday, Nov 8th, the planet Mercury will
pass directly in front the Sun. The transit begins at 2:12 pm EST (11:12 am PST)
and lasts for almost five hours. Good views can be had from the Americas,
Hawaii, Australia and all along the Pacific Rim: visibility map.

What will it look like? A picture is worth a thousand words:


Image credit: Larry Koehn. Click to view the Sun's full disk.

During the transit, Mercury's tiny disk-jet black and perfectly round-will
glide slowly across the face of the Sun. Only a speck of the Sun's surface is
actually covered, so the Sun remains as dangerous as ever to look at. But with a
proper filter and a little imagination, the Transit of Mercury can be a
marvelous experience.

There are many ways to safely observe the Sun, e.g., through eclipse
glasses or by means of a pinhole projector. In this case, nothing beats a
telescope equipped with a sun-safe H-alpha filter. H-alpha filters are narrowly
tuned to the red glow of solar hydrogen. They reveal the Sun as a boiling
inferno, cross-crossed by dark magnetic filaments and peppered with sunspots.
Warning: The sight of Mercury navigating this starscape could be mind blowing.

Teachers, call your local astronomy club and ask if they have such a solar
telescope. Amateur astronomers love to show off the heavens, and someone will
probably volunteer to bring their 'scope to your classroom for the transit. (You
can also view the transit online at the SOHO web site--no telescope required.)

Right: Mercury, photographed by Mariner 10. [More]

Here's something to think about while watching the transit: Mercury is
fantastically mysterious. More than half of the planet is unknown to us. When
Mariner 10 flew by in the mid-70s, it managed to photograph only 45% of
Mercury's cratered surface. What lies on the other side? More craters? Or
something totally unexpected? You're free to speculate, because the next
spacecraft to visit Mercury, NASA's MESSENGER probe, won't enter orbit until
2011.

One of Mercury's greatest secrets is the mystery-material at its poles.
Radars on Earth have pinged Mercury and received a strong echo from polar
craters. A favorite explanation is ice. While Mercury's daylit surface heats up
to 400o C, the temperature in deep, dark polar craters dips below -200o C. If an
icy comet landed in one of those craters (or made one of those craters), the
comet's ices, vaporized by impact, might re-freeze and stick around. As skeptics
like to say, however, "it's just a theory," one of many that MESSENGER will
check.

Another puzzle is Mercury's wrinkles. Geologists call them "lobate
scarps." Like wrinkles on a raisin, the scarps are thought to be a sign of
shrinkage. Mercury may actually be collapsing in on itself as its massive iron
core cools and contracts. To check this idea, MESSENGER will map Mercury's
magnetic field, which springs from the core. If the core is collapsing, the
collapse may leave telltale signs in the planet's magnetism. MESSENGER will also
look for lobate scarps on the uncharted side of Mercury to see if this is truly
a global phenomenon.

The answers are years away. Meanwhile, we watch and wonder, and Nov. 8th
is a good day for that.



Forwarded By yours Dr.BHUDIA-Science Group Of INDIA.
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/venustransit_2004/
President:"Kutch Science Foundation".
Founder :"Kutch Amateurs Astronomers Club - Bhuj - Kutch".
Life Member:"kutch Itihaas Parishad".
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