The Transit of Venus

Venus has completed the 2012 transit. Watch highlights below.

You can also check out the many cool pics from all over the world:

NASA Venus Transit Observing Challenge Photos

Thanks to all who shared this event here with us!

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Among the Rarest of Astronomical Events, Watch It Here, Live!

The Transit of Venus BEGINS TODAY JUNE 5 AT 22:00 UT Miss this one and the next time will be in 2117! Find the hour the webcast starts in your Time Zone First contact is at nine minutes past the hour.

Among the rarest of Astronomical Events, Watch It Here Live!
The webcast will have a live telescope feed from the observatory on Mount Mauna Loa on June 5

The feed is live for 6-and-a-half hours beginning at 22:00 UT (noon in Hawaii, 6 pm Eastern)

Transit of Venus | exploratorium.edu/venus

During the webcast, you can also listen to a sound composition being created from the video in real time

A transit is a kind of eclipse. The Mauna Loa Solar Observatory It is a phenomenon where a planet passes like a small shadow across the Sun. Since Venus is so far from Earth, it is seen as a tiny dot and it looks something like a moving sunspot.  Sunspots take about 2 weeks to cross the Sun, but Venus takes a little over 6 hours. It lasts long but it's also gone for long. A twice in a lifetime event! When Venus transits it does so twice, 8 years apart and then it does not happen again  for close to a hundred years. This one is also part of a pair. 2012 is the 2nd transit of Venus this century. The first transit occurred in 2004. The previous one to that, was in 1882.

VENUS For more on the planet Venus (NASA) With thanks to The Exploratorium

Enjoy the transit of Venus while it lasts, you're lucky to be alive to witness it.

© 2012 MU-Peter Shimon