why do we not see an eclipse when the plats closest to the sun are inbetween the earth and the sun?

Question

please answer quickly and accuratley. plase dont make the answer too complicated. thank you so much.

Answer 1

The reason why is because the planets are extremely small compared to the sun in the sky. We can see them go across the sun with a telescope (be safe and don't look directly at the sun).

Answer 2

I do this all the time - people have no idea how big is the sun.

It is about 120 times the diameter of Venus and 250 times the diameter of mercury. So, when they pass between the sun and us they just show as tiny dots. It is called a "Transit". Look up "Transit of Venus" on Google or Wikipedia. It is quite an event for astronomers.

The only reason the moon blots out the sun in an eclipse is its closeness - it is hundreds of times closer than Mercury or Venus ever come. Remember, you can blot the sun out with your thumb, just because your thumb is so close.

But it is a good question. You just have to get the scale of the Solar System in mind. The sun is everything, the planets are just leftovers.

Answer 3

If you hold a penny in front of one eye, it blocks out most of that eye's view. But if you hold the penny at arm's length, it blocks very little. That's what it's like with the Moon and the inner planets. The Moon is smaller, but it's much closer, only one quarter of a million miles away. Venus is bigger but it is 30 million miles away, so when it crosses in front of the Sun, it's only a tiny dot. Mercury is smaller and even farther, so it's very hard to see against the Sun.

The Moon is exactly far away enough for its size to match the apparent size of the Sun at 93 million miles, which gives you an idea of how big the Sun must be, over 100 times as wide as the Earth.

Answer 4

TRANSITS

Yes. Transit is the word. From Latin and it means a passing or crossing. Think of Sic Transit Gloria Mundi = so passes the glory of the world.

The reason why a different word is used is that an eclipse refers to a covering up and obscuring/reducing of the light of the object eclipsed. The light-level is hardly diminished at all by a transit,

TRANSITS OF VENUS

A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, obscuring a small portion of the Sun's disk.

During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun. The duration of such transits is usually measured in hours (the transit of 2004 lasted six hours).

A transit is similar to a solar eclipse by the Moon, but, although the diameter of Venus is almost 4 times that of the Moon, Venus appears much smaller because it is much farther away from Earth.

Before the space age, observations of transits of Venus helped scientists using the parallax method to calculate the distance between the Sun and the Earth.

Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena and currently occur in a pattern that repeats every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years.

Before 2004, the last pair of transits were in December 1874 and December 1882. The first of a pair of transits of Venus in the beginning of the 21st century took place on June 8, 2004 and the next will be on June 6, 2012.

After 2012, the next transits of Venus will be in December 2117 and December 2125.
Why so rare? Venus' orbit is slightly inclined relative to the Earth's orbit; thus, when the planet passes between the Earth and the Sun, it usually does not cross the face of the Sun.

Historically, transits of Venus were important, because they allowed astronomers to directly determine the size of the astronomical unit, and hence of the solar system. Captain Cook's exploration of the east coast of Australia came after he had sailed to Tahiti in 1768 to observe a transit of Venus.

TRANSITS OF MERCURY

A transit of Mercury across the Sun takes place when the planet Mercury comes between the Sun and the Earth, and Mercury is seen as a small black dot moving across the face of the Sun. On the 8th of November, 2006, the planet Mercury could be last seen going across the sun. The best place to have observed the transit on that date was in Hawaii.

Transits of Mercury with respect to Earth are much more frequent than transits of Venus, with about 13 or 14 per century, in part because Mercury is closer to the Sun and orbits it more rapidly.

Transits of Mercury can happen in May or November. November transits occur at intervals of 7, 13, or 33 years; May transits only occur at intervals of 13 or 33 years. The last three transits occurred in 1999, 2003 and 2006; the next will occur in 2016.

During a May transit, Mercury is near aphelion and has an angular diameter of 12"; during a November transit, it is near perihelion and has an angular diameter of 10".

DOUBLE CROSSINGS

To my knowledge the two inferior planets have never both transited the Sun at the same time, though such an event is perfectly possible, theoretically.

Somewhat more likely is that as observer on Jupiter would see two of the 64 Jovian moons transit the Sun simultaneously, And of course Mars or Earth could also ransit the Sun to the Jovian observer's eye, so there are far more permutations possible.

Answer 5

there are two reasons, one is that those planets are far away and quite small, they can pass between the earth and the sun and we would never know unless we looked aqt the sun through a properly filtered telescope.

second is that all of the orbits around the sun are not perfectly in line. we like to think that the solar system is pretty flat but it is actually not. sometimes mercury and venus don't even go in front of the sun from our viewpoint

Answer 6

The two planets in question are venus and mercury. The reason they can't eclipse the sun is that they appear too small (because they're far away) in the sky to cover the sun's disk.

Answer 7

Mercury and Venus are quite far away from us and very small relative to the sun. When one of them passes in front of the sun we can see it as a tiny dot in front of the sun. This event is called a transit.

Answer 8

We actually do see them traverse the sun; but they're so small compared to the disk of the sun that the sunlight reaching Earth is hardly diminished at all.

Answer 9

It has been observed. I think they call it a "transit" though.