How Far is the Sun?

The distance to the Sun, called an Astronomical Unit, had long been a mystery with the early Greeks believing the Sun to be much closer than it actually was. It was only through the Transit of Venus that astronomers had the ability to accurately find the distance to the Sun. The Transit of Venus is when Venus appears to cross the Sun, casting a small shadow. When Venus crosses the path of the sun, a black dot is visible going from one side to the other. This happens very rarely, occurring in pairs separated by 8 years, and then not occurring for another hundred years. The last transit of Venus happened on June 8, 2004, and the next will happen starting June 5, 2012. The next transit after that will happen on December 10, 2117! The way astronomers used the transit to measure the distance to the Sun was measuring the small difference in the angle that Venus appeared at on different places on the Earth. This method, called parallax, is the same way your eyes see slightly different images to be able to piece together how far an object is from you. In this exercise, we will estimate the distance from the Earth to the Sun using the same information astronomers had in 1771 when they did this for the first time! The 2012 Transit of Venus The transit will be best seen over the Pacific Ocean, in East Asia and Australia. For this experiment, we will use observations from Shanghai, China and Port Macquarie, Australia. Both cities are approximately 31 away from the equator. This will simplify our calculations. The distance between the two cities in latitude is shown on the following diagram:
Shanghai, China

Equator 6600 km 62 Port Macquarie, Australia

Transit of Venus Exercise

At both locations, we time the start and end times of the transit. The observations of the Transits are below:
From Shanghai, China: The Sun

0.5 Middle: 9:30:47 (GMT +8) Start: 6:28:09 (GMT +8) Venus End: 12:31:12 (GMT +8)

From Port Macquarie, Australia: The Sun

Middle: 11:30:16 (GMT +10) Start: 8:33:59 (GMT +10) End: 14:26:15 (GMT +10)

Venus

Transit of Venus Exercise

1. Calculate the time (in seconds) it takes for Venus to cross the sun in (a) Shanghai (TS), and (b) Port Macquarie (TP). (c) Find the difference in the two times (T).

Because there is a large (6600 km) difference between these two cities, they will see Venus cross the sun at different angles. But because the distance to Venus is large in comparison to the distance between the cities, the angle is very small. We need to find the small difference in angle of the path of Venus in Shanghai compared to Port Macquarie. We can use the difference in time between the crossings to find the difference in angle. Geometrically, we find that the difference in angle, , can be found using:
=R
sin 2 T cos 2 TS

In this equation, is half the angle from the centre of the Sun to the entry and exit points of Venus. For this transit, this angle is 50. This makes:
sin 2 = 0.91 cos 2

R in the equation is the radius of the Sun (as an angle). Because the angles we are dealing with are small, we can treat them like linear distances.

Transit of Venus Exercise

2. For the case of Shanghai, calculate the difference in the angle of crossing, .

Now that we have an angular difference in the path of the crossing, we need to know about orbits in the solar system. Using Keplers Third Law, we can determine the radii of any planets orbit by knowing its orbital period. The relationship is:
P12 r13 = P22 r23

where P is the period or orbit and r is the radii of the orbit (assuming circular orbits) for two planets in the same system. For Venus, the period its orbit is 0.615 earth years. 3. Using the Earth as a reference, determine the radii of Venus orbit (in units of Astronomical Units.) What is the distance between Earth and Venus (DEV) during the transit in Astronomical Units?

Transit of Venus Exercise

Using the angle from (2), and distance between Earth and Venus in Astronomical Units from (3), and the distance between Shanghai & Port Macquarie in km, we can approximate the length of an astronomical unit in km. The relationship is:

Earth Distance between Shanghai & Port Macquarie

DEV

Venus

360

DS PM 2DEV

4. From the above relationship, determine the length of an Astronomical Unit in km.

Transit of Venus Exercise

5. The actual length of an Astronomical Unit is 1.49108 km. How accurate is the approximation that we have determined?

6. In this exercise, we have made a number of approximations to simplify the calculation. What factors should we take into account to make this measurement more accurate?

Transit of Venus Exercise