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Solar System Transits
The transit or passage of a planet across the face of the Sun is a relatively rare occurrence.
As seen from Earth, only transits of Mercury and Venus are possible.
Transit of Venus
The next transit of Venus will be June 6, 2012.
The easiest way to view it is through safe "solar glasses" or "eclipse shades," the same filtered eye protection used by solar eclipse chasers. You can buy them through several vendors. Just Shop/Search for "safe solar glasses" or "eclipse shades." Consider buying a bunch for your friends or visitors. They can be used anytime to look for large "naked-eye" sunspots also.
There have been only five of these "transits of Venus" sighted by humans since the possibility for such events was first realized in 1639 by British astronomer and cleric Jeremiah Horrocks. Transits show a clear pattern of recurrence—they happen in "pairs," each Venus transit in a pair being 8 years apart. The intervals between pairs alternates between 121.5 and 105.5 years. The next pair of Venus transits will be 2117 Dec 11 and 2125 Dec 08.
During the transit on December 6, 1882, which made newspaper headlines all around the world, dozens of scientific expeditions were sent out across the world to observe it. Its importance to astronomers was that, by careful observation, they could use its motion and parallax to triangulate the distance between the Sun and Earth, thereby setting the scale for the entire solar system and the cosmos beyond. The 1882 transit of Venus gave astronomers the answer to this distance as 92,797,000 miles with an uncertainty of only 59,700 miles!
Image below from Fred Espenek's 2012 Transit of Venus page.
Transit of Venus Resources:
- http://www.transitofvenus.org/ - has a to-do list for hosting a transit of Venus public event; instructions for building a Sun Funnel, which allows a crowd to view the sun safely yet concurrently using one telescope; lots of teacher resources.
- ASP The Universe in the Classroom:
Don't Miss the Transit of Venus in 2012: It's Your Last Chance Until 2117
- Astronomers Without Borders Transit of Venus site - Steven van Roode has interactive maps that tell you when the key transit of Venus events occur for your location. This site includes additional details for observers using telescopes, such as R.A. and Dec., position angle, etc.. At the home page, Steven maintains a Transit of Venus blog which has a diverse collection of stories that appear regularly and continue to surprise me. Recently announced: the Hubble Space Telescope is now scheduled to participate in the 2012 transit of Venus.
- Classroom activities about transit of Venus
- Classroom activities from Kepler mission
- Chuck Bueter's Transit of Venus page on the Paper Plate Astronomy website. Also Transit of Venus planetarium show. Members of the Great Lakes Planetarium Association (GLPA), receive a copy of the FREE planetarium program, The Transit of Venus, provided by the Toyota Tapestry Grant received by Chuck Bueter and Art Klinger. Non-can GLPA members can purchase the Transit of Venus planetarium program also. Contact Chuck Bueter at bueter@transitofvenus.org
- Chasing Venus—Teacher Resource Page. Lesson plans from the Smithsonian Institution; they also will have an exhibit in Washington, D.C.
- Fred Espenak's 2004 and 2012 Transits of Venus page, NASA's GSFC. Web page based on a poster presented at the conference Scientific Frontiers in Research on Extrasolar Planets Carnegie Institution, 2002 June 18-21.
- Facebook Group for Transit of Venus , limited to 5,000 people, per FB rules.
- How To Safely Look at the Sun - page by Doug Duncan, University of Colorado.
- Local circumstances of the Venus transit - automatically detects your location and depicts it on a map; calculates and displays your local circumstances. Courtesy of Steven M. van Roode.
- NASA's Sun-Earth Day features an interactive Google map for listing and finding events in your neighborhood.
- London Times article: Venus Transit of 1874.
- PlanetQuest Venus Transit Simulation.
About the transit of Venus - 2004: One of the major astronomical highlights of 2004 was the June 8 transit of Venus, an event that had last occurred in 1882. The complete transit was visible across Europe and most of Asia. At sunrise, people on the East Coast witnessed the rare movement of the planet Venus across the face of the Sun. This event had not been seen since 1882. Venus was over 67 million miles from the Sun and about 26 million miles from Earth--exactly between the Sun and Earth. Observers saw its small black disk "transit" across the Sun. See:
- AAS paper on Transit of Venus: [12.01] Transit of Venus--2004: A Cosmic Opportunity, K. E. Kissell (University of Maryland and Kissell Associates), R. M. Genet (The Union Institute and University and Orion Institute)
- European Southern Observatory (ESO) Transit page
- Transit of Venus and ISS. Somewhere, someone will get to see the International Space Station transit the sun concurrent with the transit of Venus. Imagine looking at the sun while watching the transit when--zoom!--the ISS passes through your field of view.
Transit of Venus March , written by John Phillip Sousa in 1883, is available as a music file at 2004 Sun-Earth Day website. The Transit of Venus March was one of John Philip Sousa's earliest marches written while he was still a new conductor for the U.S. Marine Band - a commission that he had just accepted in 1880. Following a difficult year of recruiting new band members, and firing those that didn't satisfy his exacting musical standards, his band made its debut White House performance on January 1, 1881. Sousa's popularity as the 'March King' grew steadily in the years to follow. His better-known 'Stars and Stripes Forever' march was written in 1889 and was declared the official U.S. National March by an act of Congress in 1987.
John Philip Sousa was commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution to write a march to honor the great American physicist Prof. Joseph Henry who had died on May 13, 1878. The march was to be played as a processional for the planned unveiling of the commemorative statue of Henry. The statue was to be placed in front of the Smithsonian Institution in 1883. The December 6, 1882 transit of Venus was evidently such a striking event for the general public that Sousa chose to base the new march on this rare transit. Some scholars also think that there may have been much more involved in this march than simple 'background music'. According to author David Ovason in his book 'The Secret Architecture of our Nation's Capital' (1999) the Transit of Venus March was to be performed at a specific time and date: April 19, 1883 at 4:00 PM. At this propitious hour, the planet Venus, invisible to the participants, would have completed its arc in the sky and would be setting in the west. Meanwhile, Virgo would rising in the east, and Jupiter would be directly over head. Venus was associated with the element copper. Joseph Henry had used large quantities of copper to create his powerful electromagnets, which at that time operated some of America's newest technology. The connection of the 'passing of Henry' commemorated by the statue, and the 'passing of Venus' in its western setting may have seemed like a fitting mystical bond between two separate worlds: human and cosmic.
In preparation for NASA's educational programs in 2004, Dr. Sten Odenwald, an astronomer at the NASA Goddard Space flight Center, examined the documents at the Library of Congress related to previous transits of Venus. He also worked with Ms. Susan Clermont to locate any music that may have been inspired by this rare celestial event. Among a collection of sheet music, they located Sousa's Transit of Venus March. Mr. Loris Schissel, a Sousa expert and the conductor of the Virginia Grand Military Band, was then contacted to inquire about the circumstances of this march.
Next transit of Mercury: 9 May 2016
About Transit of Mercury — 2006 Nov 8:
NASA 2006 Transit of Mercury page by Fred Espanek.
Webcasts of the transit of Mercury
- NASA Sun-Earth Day transit webcast - November 8,
1:30 - 2:30 ET (10:30 -11:30 PT)
Featuring:
- A panel of scientists live from NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center and educators and amateur astronomer live from Langley Research Center.
- 2 NASA Explorer Schools connected for live interaction-questions and answers.
- A telescope 'safety viewing' demonstration with instructions on how to view the transit using a classroom solarscope.
- Live images of the transit from 2 NASA satellites, SOHO and TRACE.
- Live ground based images from Kitt Peak and Hawaii!
- Mercury transit Hawaiian style - live webcast from Hawaii
- Exploratorium Webcast of Mercury Transit
- Live webcast of the Transit of Mercury at NASA Digital Learning Network included discussion of the science, technology, and history of the transit as well as our knowledge of the Sun and space weather. The webcast included a panel discussion about Mercury, the Sun and safe viewing techniques of the transit. Live feed (provided by the Exploratorium) of the transit from Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona, beginning at first contact.
- Views of the Sun with SOHO
About the 2003 Transit of Mercury:
There are approximately 13 transits of Mercury each century. The planet Mercury passed in front of the Sun on Wednesday, May 7, 2003. Spacecraft and Earth-based observatories caught some nice views of the rare occurrence (transit). Here are images from the 2003 transit:
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