IMEJ Transit Planet Zuhrah

IMEJ Transit Planet Zuhrah (titik) melintasi matahari pada jam 11.30 pagi semalam, dirakamkan di Pantai Mek Mas, Kuala Besar, Kelantan dengan menggunakan teleskop coronado yang dilengkapi dengan penuras hidrogen dan dirakamkan dengan kamera video Skynyx yang dianjurkan oleh Balai Cerap Mini Dr Rowi. - Foto Fathil Asri

IMEJ oleh NASA menunjukkan Planet Zuhrah (bintik hitam, atas kiri) melintasi matahari kelmarin.

LOS ANGELES, Amerika Syarikat (AS) – Penduduk di seluruh dunia memandang ke langit pada waktu siang kelmarin dan awal petang semalam di Asia untuk melihat transit Zuhrah.

Keajaiban alam tersebut berikutnya hanya akan berlaku dalam tempoh 105 tahun akan datang.

Transit Zuhrah terjadi apabila planet berkenaan melintasi di antara Bumi dan Matahari.

Penduduk Bumi dapat melihat planet berkenaan sebagai satu bintik hitam kecil pada permukaan matahari.

“Jika anda dapat melihat tahi lalat pada wajah model antarabangsa Cindy Crawford, anda pasti akan dapat melihat transit Zuhrah,” kata seorang ahli Persatuan Astronomi Los Angeles, Van Webster.

Transit berkenaan berlaku selama 6 jam 40 minit bermula selepas pukul 6 petang di AS.

Mereka yang berada di Amerika Utara dan Tengah akan dapat melihat keseluruhan fenomena itu manakala penduduk di barat Asia, timur Afrika dan sebahagian besar Eropah pula akan dapat menyaksikan penghujung transit Zuhrah apabila matahari terbit.

Di Hawaii, Alaska, timur Australia dan Asia termasuk Jepun, Semenanjung Korea dan timur China, orang ramai dapat memerhatikan keseluruhan transit Zuhrah kerana fenomena itu berlaku pada siang hari.

Mereka yang tidak memiliki teleskop bersama penapis khas memilih untuk menyaksikan fenomena itu di laman web Pentadbiran Aeronautik dan Angkasa Lepas Kebangsaan (NASA).

Laman web tersebut mencatat hampir 2 juta penonton kelmarin dengan sekitar 90,000 orang melayarinya pada sesuatu masa.

Di bandar raya ini, kali terakhir transit Zuhrah berlaku adalah 130 tahun lalu pada 1882.

“Saya berasa sangat seronok. Ini satu pengalaman yang kami tidak akan lupakan seumur hidup kami,” kata seorang jurutera perisian berusia 32 tahun, Bo Tan.

Dia dan beberapa rakan sekerjanya mengambil cuti separuh hari untuk memerhatikan keganjilan alam tersebut.

Namun, orang awam yang mahu melihat transit Zuhrah dinasihatkan supaya memakai kaca mata khas atau teleskop dilengkapi penapis cahaya.

Ini kerana perbuatan memandang pada tempoh yang lama ke arah matahari akan merosakkan retina mata.

Ketika gerhana matahari berlaku pada 1970, sebanyak 145 kes retina rosak dilaporkan di AS akibat perbuatan memandang ke arah bintang tersebut tanpa sebarang peralatan keselamatan.

Transit Zuhrah berikutnya hanya akan berlaku pada tahun 2117. – Agensi

NASA....

› Download video It won't happen again until December 2117. On June 5th, 2012, Venus will transit the face of the sun in an event of both historical and observational importance. The best places to watch are in the south Pacific, but travel is not required. The event will also be visible around sunset from the USA. Credit: Science@NASA

On June 5th, 2012, Venus will pass across the face of the sun, producing a silhouette that no one alive today will likely see again.

Transits of Venus are very rare, coming in pairs separated by more than a hundred years. This June's transit, the bookend of a 2004-2012 pair, won't be repeated until the year 2117. Fortunately, the event is widely visible. Observers on seven continents, even a sliver of Antarctica, will be in position to see it. 

The nearly 7-hour transit begins at 3:09 pm Pacific Daylight Time (22:09 UT) on June 5th. The timing favors observers in the mid-Pacific where the sun is high overhead during the crossing. In the USA, the transit will be at its best around sunset. That's good, too. Creative photographers will have a field day imaging the swollen red sun "punctured" by the circular disk of Venus.

Observing tip: Do not stare at the sun. Venus covers too little of the solar disk to block the blinding glare. Instead, use some type of projection technique or a solar filter. A #14 welder's glass is a good choice. Many astronomy clubs will have solar telescopes set up to observe the event; contact your local club for details.

Transits of Venus first gained worldwide attention in the 18th century. In those days, the size of the solar system was one of the biggest mysteries of science. The relative spacing of planets was known, but not their absolute distances. How many miles would you have to travel to reach another world? The answer was as mysterious then as the nature of dark energy is now.

Venus was the key, according to astronomer Edmund Halley. He realized that by observing transits from widely-spaced locations on Earth it should be possible to triangulate the distance to Venus using the principles of parallax.

The idea galvanized scientists who set off on expeditions around the world to view a pair of transits in the 1760s. The great explorer James Cook himself was dispatched to observe one from Tahiti, a place as alien to 18th-century Europeans as the Moon or Mars might seem to us now. Some historians have called the international effort the "the Apollo program of the 18th century."› View larger
A double transit: the International Space Station and Venus on June 8, 2004. Photo courtesy of Tomas Maruska.In retrospect, the experiment falls into the category of things that sound better than they actually are. Bad weather, primitive optics, and the natural "fuzziness" of Venus’s atmosphere and other factors prevented those early observers from gathering the data they needed. Proper timing of a transit would have to wait for the invention of photography in the century after Cook’s voyage. In the late 1800s, astronomers armed with cameras finally measured the size of the Solar System as Edmund Halley had suggested.

This year’s transit is the second of an 8-year pair. Anticipation was high in June 2004 as Venus approached the sun. No one alive at the time had seen a Transit of Venus with their own eyes, and the hand-drawn sketches and grainy photos of previous centuries scarcely prepared them for what was about to happen. Modern solar telescopes captured unprecedented view of Venus’s atmosphere backlit by solar fire. They saw Venus transiting the sun’s ghostly corona, and gliding past magnetic filaments big enough to swallow the planet whole.

2012 should be even better as cameras and solar telescopes have improved. Moreover, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory is going to be watching too. SDO will produce Hubble-quality images of this rare event.

› View larger
World visibility map for June 5-6, 2012 Venus Transit. Credit: M. Zeiler