PERE , Christophe

The transit of Venus across the Sun is a rare and unique opportunity to study therefraction of sunlight through the atmosphere, called the "aureola", and determine the atmosphericproperties of the planet and in particular the thermal structure of the upper atmosphere. Theobjective of this thesis was the modeling of this refraction effect at...

We exploit the solar transits of Venus in 2004 and 2012, to derive useful constraints on the mesosphere of the planet by the observation of the so-called "aureole" resulting from direct sunlight refraction. In 2012 we organized an extensive campaign, involving observations through both space- and ground- based telescopes. A specific design...