Thursday, July 24, 2008

Neat Movie of the Moon transitting the Earth

NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft, on its way to its rendezvous with Comet Hartley 2, recently filmed this video of the Moon "transiting" the Earth - essentially passing between the Earth and this spacecraft, absorbing some of the light being emitted by the Earth. This technique has proven invaluable in detecting and studying planets orbiting other stars, and in fact Deep Impact is currently looking for an Earth-size transiting planet around red dwarf GJ436, as part of the EPOCh project. Enjoy!

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