A spacecraft studying the wild ways of our magnificent Sun has captured an event rarely seen from our position here on Earth's surface.
On 3 January 2023, the European Space Agency-led Solar Orbiter observed the innermost planet of the Solar System slide across the disk of the Sun; a small black dot against a background of raging flame., crosses in front of a star, blocking out a small amount of its light. Though the orbiting object is often reduced to a mere shadow, transit events can teach us all sorts of interesting things.
frameborder="0″ allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen>in the kit for finding planets outside the Solar System, or exoplanets. Space telescopes like Kepler and TESS stare at stars for long periods of time, looking for faint, regular dips in starlight that are the signature of a transiting exoplanet.
Not only does this subtle flicker of a shadow reveal the orbiting body's presence, but it can also potentially provide a hint about its makeup. When an exoplanet – or even a closer planet like, or a moon, for that matter – passes in front of its parent star, some of the star's light will filter through any atmosphere it might be harboring. Analysis of the ways that light differs from the naked starlight can allow scientists to determine the gas's composition.
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