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Astronomy & Space vocabulary · The Night Sky & Measurement

Transit

Meaning in astronomy & space, with examples

/ˈtrænzɪt/nounAdvanced term

In astronomy & space, transit means: The passage of a planet or moon across the face of a larger body, such as Mercury crossing the Sun's disc or an exoplanet passing in front of its star.

In Turkish: geçiş, transit

How it is used

Exoplanet hunters use the 'transit method': they watch for small, regular dips in a star's brightness. Transits of Mercury and Venus across the Sun are rare events that observers plan for years in advance.

Example sentences

  1. The next transit of Venus will not happen until 2117.

  2. The planet was found with the transit method, from a 1 percent dip in the star's light.

Common collocations

  • transit method
  • transit of Mercury
  • transit of Venus
  • planetary transit
  • exoplanetA planet that orbits a star other than the Sun. The first one around a Sun-like star was found in 1995, and thousands are known today.
  • eclipseAn event in which one body in space blocks the light of another, for example when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, or Earth's shadow falls on the Moon.
  • orbital periodThe time an object takes to complete one full orbit around another object. Earth's orbital period around the Sun is about 365.25 days.
  • SunThe star at the centre of our solar system. Its gravity holds the planets in their orbits, and its light and heat make life on Earth possible.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: The Night Sky & Measurement

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