Which of these transits in the Sun was the first observation from a planet besides Earth?
In astronomy, a transit is a phenomenon when a celestial body passes directly between a larger body and an observer. As in the solar transit by the moon, the Sun, Moon and Earth are aligned forming a new moon. Venus transits the Sun and it was seen from Saturn. As viewed from a particular vantage point, the transiting body appears to move across the face of the Sun, covering a small portion and the planet appears as a small dark spot. The probability of seeing the transiting planet is low because it is dependent on the alignment in a nearly perfectly straight line. In astronomy, ''syzygy'' is a roughly straight-line configuration in a gravitational system. This word is often used to describe configurations of transiting of Mercury and Venus. One such case occurred 23.00 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), when Mercury transited the Sun as would have been seen from Venus.
NASA's Curiosity rover in Mars is designed to explore the Gale crater. On June 3, 2014, it observed the planet Mercury transiting the Sun, marking the first time a planetary transit has been observed from Mars besides Earth. New NASA images from Mars showing Mercury as a dim spot against the Sun are the first observation. This is a nod to the relevance of planetary transits to the history of astronomy of Earth as said by Mark Lemon of Texas. Mercury transits were used to measure the size of the Sun. Mercury is visible more often from Mars than from Earth. The next visit of Mercury from Mars will be in April 2015.
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