Transit Of Minor Planets
A transit of a minor planet takes place when a minor planet passes directly between an observer and another heavenly body, obscuring a small part of that body's disc. From the perspective of observers on Earth, transits of the Sun and Moon by minor planets are very rare, as the minor planets orbiting between the Earth and those bodies are few and very small. Transits of the Sun would be more visible from the outer planets.
Transits should be distinguished from occultations, in which the minor planet entirely blocks out the light from the other body.
Read more about Transit Of Minor Planets: Asteroids, Comets, Transits of The Moon
Famous quotes containing the words transit, minor and/or planets:
“We only seem to learn from Life that Life doesn’t matter so much as it seemed to do—it’s not so burningly important, after all, what happens. We crawl, like blinking sea-creatures, out of the Ocean onto a spur of rock, we creep over the promontory bewildered and dazzled and hurting ourselves, then we drop in the ocean on the other side: and the little transit doesn’t matter so much.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“People are too apt to treat God as if he were a minor royalty.”
—Herbert Beerbohm, Sir Tree (1853–1917)
“I would sell my life to avoid
the pain that begins in the crib
with its bars or perhaps
with your first breath
when the planets drill
your future into you....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)