Community Corner
Transit of Venus 2012: A Twice-in-a-Lifetime Experience
Marvel at the solar system in motion Tuesday when Venus passes across the face of the sun.
Get ready for a rare astronomical and sky watching event Tuesday—the passage of the planet Venus across the face of the sun.
Locally, the transit will begin at about 3:04 p.m. It will be visible in its entirety only from the western Pacific, eastern Asia, eastern Australia and at high northern latitudes.
Transits of Venus are rare, happening in pairs eight years apart, with each pair separated by more than a hundred years. This June's transit, the bookend of a 2004-2012 pair, won't be repeated until the year 2117, according to the NASA website.
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NASA will webcast it from the summit of Mauna Kea, HI. Click here for Venus transit of 2012 tips on how to see Venus cross the face of the sun.
Over a seven-hour span, Venus will trek across the solar disk, appearing in silhouette as a slow-moving, tiny black dot—weather permitting—according to the NASA website.
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"Only six such events have occurred since the invention of the telescope," said astrophysicist Sten Odenwald, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, in a statement.
The key to watching it is to find an unobstructed view of the horizon. It is recommended observers watch from the top of a high building. The transit will occur near the lower rim of the sun, according to NASA.
The transit will be visible to the naked eye but experts say it's . Use eclipse shades or a telescope lens filter.
The transit will be shown on NASA TV, which is available on many cable and satellite transmission systems, and on NASA TV's website.
