During a transit of Venus, approximately what angle would exist between a line connecting the north pole?
During a transit of Venus, approximately what angle would exist between a line connecting the north pole of Earth, Venus’ center and the Sun and another line connecting the south pole of Earth, Venus’ center and the Sun? Is this angle larger than the angular size of the Sun?
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- First find distance from Venus to Earth. I think about 32 million miles is about right. Use trigonometry to find angle with opposite side 8000 miles, near side 32 million The sun is one hundred times the diameter of the earth. The distance of Venus to sun is not enough compared to the distance of Earth to Venus. The angle set by the 8000 mile diameter of the earth is too narrow.
- hi Do you mean the displacement of venus on the sun disk, between an observer on the equator and an observer on the north pole? The distance to Venus is around 38,000,000 km. The radius of Earth is 6350 km. So take the (very small) angle of this triangle.
- During the 2012 transit, Venus will be 0.28870 A.U. from the Earth. This is 43,189,000 km. The Earth's polar diameter is 12,712 km. This distance would subtend an angle of 12,712/43,189,000 radians at Venus. Multiply this by (360 x 60 x 60)/2π to convert to arcseconds, which gives the result 60.7. The Sun's diameter at this time will be 1892 arcseconds, so the maximum displacement of Venus as seen from the Earth will be approximately 1/31 of the Sun's diameter.
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