Transit of Uranus from Neptune
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A transit of Uranus from Neptune occurs when Uranus passes directly between the Sun and Neptune. Uranus can then be seen as a small black disk edging slowly across the disk of the Sun. A central transit lasts about 42 hours.
This is the rarest of all transits involving the eight official planets, owing to the long synodic period of 172 years, the very small apparent diameter of the Sun (1.07 arc-minutes) as seen from Neptune. The next will occur in October 38172, and the last was in 52,180 BC. (Transits from Pluto are likely to be rarer still, due to the inclination of its orbit.)
The mutual inclination of the two orbits is 1.5 degrees, which is less than that of most planetary pairs.
[edit] references
- Meeus, Jean (1989). Transits. Willmann-Bell.
- SOLEX 9.1
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