Celestial Tic-Tac-Toe: Mercury, Venus and the Moon align

One morning, in March 2008, a rare and beautiful sight greeted Yuri Beletsky, astronomer at ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) observatory at Paranal in northern Chile. In the sky above the observing deck, the planets Mercury and Venus were in alignment above the Moon, in a celestial event known as a conjunction.

Mercury, the smallest of the planets and shining highest in the sky in this image, orbits closest to the Sun of all the eight planets in our Solar System. Venus comes next, followed by Earth and its Moon. So this image captures the full stock of major astronomical bodies that pass between Earth and its host star.

To the bottom left, seen as an impressive silhouette, and accompanying this cosmic chance encounter, is one of the four 1.8-metre Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs) deployed at Paranal. These mobile telescopes are used for interferometry, an astronomical technique that essentially combines the observing power of all the telescopes involved into one giant telescope, allowing astronomers to probe the mysteries of the Universe in even greater detail.

Créditos:

Sobre a imagem

Id:potw1025a
Tipo:Fotográfico
Data de divulgação:21 de Junho de 2010 às 10:00
Tamanho:1691 x 2500 px

Sobre o objeto

Nome:Very Large Telescope
Tipo:Unspecified : Technology : Observatory : Telescope
Categoria:Paranal

Formatos de imagens

JPEG grande
303,7 KB

Zoom


Papéis de parede

1024x768
61,7 KB
1280x1024
101,3 KB
1600x1200
158,6 KB
1920x1200
181,4 KB
2048x1536
240,6 KB