Could you define: occultation, transit, ingress and egress?

Occultation is the moving of one body in front of another. The Moon occults the Sun during a solar eclipse, the Earth occults the Moon during a Lunar eclipse, and the Moon can occult a distant planet or star as it passes in front of it.

Transit is the passage of one body across the face of a second body. The planet Mercury can transit the disk of the Sun as seen from earth and appears as a small black spot. A Moon of Jupiter can transit across the disk of Jupiter as seen from Earth.

Ingress means that a body has just passed behind a second body or its shadow. For example, the Voyager 2 spacecraft passed behind Jupiter and ingressed its shadow. Egress means to exit from behind a second body or its shadow.

Both ingress and egress are used to describe the times when, for example, the Moon enters and leaves the Earth's shadow during a lunar eclipse.


Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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