"of the Moon, Venus appears smaller, and travels more slowly across the face of the Sun, because it is much farther away from Earth. Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena. They occur in a pattern that generally repeats every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years. The periodicity is a reflection of the fact that the orbital periods of Earth and Venus are close to 8:13 and 243:395 commensurabilities. The last transit of Venus was on 5 and 6 June 2012, and was"
"similarly tiny. The 2012 transit provided scientists numerous research opportunities as well, in particular in regard to the study of exoplanets. Research of the 2012 Venus transit includes: NASA maintains a catalog of Venus transits covering the period 2000 BCE to 4000 CE. Currently, transits occur only in June or December (see table) and the occurrence of these events slowly drifts, becoming later in the year by about two days every 243-year cycle. Transits usually occur in pairs, on nearly the same date eight years apart. This is because the length of eight Earth years is almost the same as"
"88,756.9 Earth days. This period of time corresponds to 152 synodic periods of Venus. The pattern of 105.5, 8, 121.5 and 8 years is not the only pattern that is possible within the 243-year cycle, because of the slight mismatch between the times when the Earth and Venus arrive at the point of conjunction. Prior to 1518, the pattern of transits was 8, 113.5 and 121.5 years, and the eight inter-transit gaps before the AD 546 transit were 121.5 years apart. The current pattern will continue until 2846, when it will be replaced by a pattern of 105.5, 129.5 and"
"the face of the Sun. Transits of Venus occur when the planet's inferior conjunction coincides with its presence in the plane of Earth's orbit. Transits of Venus occur in cycles of with the current pattern of transits being pairs of transits separated by eight years, at intervals of about or —a pattern first discovered in 1639 by the English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks. The latest pair was June 8, 2004 and June 5–6, 2012. The transit could be watched live from many online outlets or observed locally with the right equipment and conditions. The preceding pair of transits occurred in December"
"13 years on Venus, so every eight years the planets are in roughly the same relative positions. This approximate conjunction usually results in a pair of transits, but it is not precise enough to produce a triplet, since Venus arrives 22 hours earlier each time. The last transit not to be part of a pair was in 1396. The next will be in 3089; in 2854 (the second of the 2846/2854 pair), although Venus will just miss the Sun as seen from the Earth's equator, a partial transit will be visible from some parts of the southern hemisphere. Thus after"
"occur in pairs at eight-year intervals, with each such pair more than a century apart. The most recent pair of transits of Venus occurred in 2004 and 2012, while the prior pair occurred in 1874 and 1882. In the 19th century, many observers stated that Venus had a period of rotation of roughly 24 hours. Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli was the first to predict a significantly slower rotation, proposing that Venus was tidally locked with the Sun (as he had also proposed for Mercury). While not actually true for either body, this was still a reasonably accurate estimate. The near-resonance"
"the last member of #2. From −125,000 till +125,000 there are only about ten 243-year series at both nodes regarding all the transits of Venus in this very long time-span, because both nodes of the orbit of Venus move back and forward in time as seen from the Earth. Over longer periods of time, new series of transits will start and old series will end. Unlike the saros series for lunar eclipses, it is possible for a transit series to restart after a hiatus. The transit series also vary much more in length than the saros series. Sometimes Venus only"
"Transit of Venus, 2012 The 2012 transit of Venus, when the planet Venus appeared as a small, dark spot passing across the face of the Sun, began at 22:09 UTC on 5 June 2012, and finished at 04:49 UTC on 6 June. Depending on the position of the observer, the exact times varied by up to ±7 minutes. Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable celestial phenomena and occur in pairs. Consecutive transits per pair are spaced 8 years apart, and consecutive pairs occur more than a century apart: The previous transit of Venus took place on 8"
"Earth varies from about 42 million miles (at inferior conjunction) to about 258 million miles (at superior conjunction). The average period between successive conjunctions of one type is 584 days – one synodic period of Venus. Five synodic periods of Venus is almost exactly 13 sidereal Venus years and 8 Earth ones, and consequently the longitudes and distances almost repeat. The 3.4° inclination of Venus's orbit is great enough to usually prevent the inferior planet from passing directly between the Sun and Earth at inferior conjunction. Such solar transits of Venus rarely occur, but with great predictability and interest. In"
"occurrence of a transit of Mercury and a transit of Venus is extremely rare, but somehow more frequent than from Earth, and will next occur in the years , and .<br> On several occasions a related event is predicted: a transit of Mercury and a transit of Venus, or transit of Earth, will follow themselves, one after the other, in an interval of only several hours. On November 28, 3867 there is a transit of Earth and Moon, and two days later a transit of Mercury occurs. On January 16, 18551 transits of Mercury and Venus are separated by 14"
"the last Venus transit of the 21st century; the prior transit took place on 8 June 2004. The previous pair of transits were in December 1874 and December 1882. The next transits of Venus will take place on 10–11 December 2117, and 8 December 2125. Venus transits are historically of great scientific importance as they were used to gain the first realistic estimates of the size of the Solar System. Observations of the 1639 transit, combined with the principle of parallax, provided an estimate of the distance between the Sun and the Earth that was more accurate than any other"
"Transit of Venus, 1874 The 1874 transit of Venus, which took place on 9 December 1874 (01:49 to 06:26 UTC), was the first of the pair of transits of Venus that took place in the 19th century, with the second transit occurring eight years later in 1882. The previous pair of transits had taken place in 1761 and 1769, and the next pair would not take place until 2004 and 2012. As with previous transits, the 1874 transit would provide an opportunity for improved measurements and observations. Numerous expeditions were planned and sent out to observe the transit from locations"
"Transit of Venus A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet, becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun. The duration of such transits is usually several hours (the transit of 2012 lasted 6 hours and 40 minutes). A transit is similar to a solar eclipse by the Moon. While the diameter of Venus is more than three times that"
"with Venus’s 40-year cycle of appearance — that occurred at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ December 25th, 7 BCE. In these conjunctions the planets were so close to each other that they appeared as a single star which lit the evening sky as if it were daylight. Conjunctions occurr in 40 year cycles (i.e., 487 BCE, 967 BCE, 1447 BCE.) Interestingly, 480 year cycles (12 cycles of 40 years) are found throughout ancient Jewish history - the construction of Solomon’s Temple supposedly began 1440 years after the great flood through which Moses supposedly led his people. Jesus"
"and Northern Asia. General June 2012 transit Transit of Venus A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet, becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun. The duration of such transits is usually several hours (the transit of 2012 lasted 6 hours and 40 minutes). A transit is similar to a solar eclipse by the Moon. While the diameter of"
"Earth orbits and 13 Venus orbits. The actual ratio is 0.61518624, which is only 0.032% away from exactly 8:13. The mismatch after 8 years is only 1.5° of Venus' orbital movement. Still, this is enough that Venus and Earth find themselves in the opposite relative orientation to the original every 120 such cycles, which is 960 years. Therefore, on timescales of thousands of years or more (still tiny by astronomical standards), their relative position is effectively random. The presence of a near resonance may reflect that a perfect resonance existed in the past, or that the system is evolving towards"
"of Venus. This encounter shortens its period to half of that of Venus, or about 112.5 days. After two orbits it meets Venus a fourth time at about the same place, shortening its period to about 102 days. After 237 days it meets Venus for the fifth time and its period is shortened to about 96 days, three-sevenths that of Venus. It then makes seven orbits while Venus makes three. The sixth encounter, almost two years after the fifth, brings its period down to 92 days, two-fifths that of Venus. After five more orbits (two orbits of Venus) it meets"
"sunset) on the same day. This scenario arises when Venus is at its maximum separation from the ecliptic and concomitantly at inferior conjunction; then one hemisphere (Northern or Southern) will be able to see it at both times. This opportunity presented itself most recently for Northern Hemisphere observers within a few days on either side of March 29, 2001, and for those in the Southern Hemisphere, on and around August 19, 1999. These respective events repeat themselves every eight years pursuant to the planet's synodic cycle. Transits of Venus directly between the Earth and the Sun's visible disc are rare"
"of Mercury, which usually happen every few years, most recently in 2006 and 2010. The most recent transit of Venus was in 1953, and the next will be in 2051; the corresponding dates are 1814 and 2081 for transits of Earth, and 767 and 2684 for transits of Mars. The rotation period of Ceres (the Cererian day) is 9 hours and 4 minutes. It has an axial tilt of 4°. This is small enough for Ceres's polar regions to contain permanently shadowed craters that are expected to act as cold traps and accumulate water ice over time, similar to the"
"last four transits occurred on November 15, 1999; May 7, 2003; November 8, 2006; and May 9, 2016. The next will occur on November 11, 2019, and then on November 13, 2032. A typical transit lasts several hours. On June 3, 2014, the Mars rover ""Curiosity"" observed the planet Mercury transiting the Sun, marking the first time a planetary transit has been observed from a celestial body besides Earth. More generally, transits can also occur for Venus and were investigated in the context of searching for the hypothetical inner planet Vulcan. The most common observation to be made at a"
"between transits: Transits that occur 46 years apart can be grouped into a series. For November transits each series includes about 20 transits over 874 years, with the path of Mercury across the Sun passing further north than for the previous transit. For May transits each series includes about 10 transits over 414 years, with the path of Mercury across the Sun passing further south than for the previous transit. Some authors have allocated a series number to transits on the basis of this 46-year grouping. Similarly transits that occur 217 years apart can be grouped into a series. For"
"proportionately largest moon Charon, is also the site of many eclipses. A series of such mutual eclipses occurred between 1985 and 1990. These daily events led to the first accurate measurements of the physical parameters of both objects. Eclipses are impossible on Mercury and Venus, which have no moons. However, both have been observed to transit across the face of the Sun. There are on average 13 transits of Mercury each century. Transits of Venus occur in pairs separated by an interval of eight years, but each pair of events happen less than once a century. According to NASA, the"
"1874 and December 1882; the following pair will occur in December 2117 and December 2125. The oldest film known is the 1874 ""Passage de Venus"", showing the 1874 Venus transit of the sun. Historically, transits of Venus were important, because they allowed astronomers to determine the size of the astronomical unit, and hence the size of the Solar System as shown by Horrocks in 1639. Captain Cook's exploration of the east coast of Australia came after he had sailed to Tahiti in 1768 to observe a transit of Venus. The pentagram of Venus is the path that Venus makes as"
"on a regular basis. Once the orbit is established, no propulsion is required to shuttle between the two bodies on a regular basis, although some minor corrections may be necessary due to small perturbations in the orbit. The use of cyclers was considered in 1969 by Walter M. Hollister, who examined the case of an Earth-Venus cycler. Cycler trajectories between Earth and Mars occur in whole-number multiples of the synodic period between the two planets, which is about 2.135 Earth years. A Martian year is 1.8808 Earth years, so Mars makes eight orbits of the Sun in about the same"
"It was strongly advocated by Edmond Halley and was applied to the transits of Venus observed in 1761 and 1769, and then again in 1874 and 1882. Transits of Venus occur in pairs, but less than one pair every century, and observing the transits in 1761 and 1769 was an unprecedented international scientific operation including observations by James Cook and Charles Green from Tahiti. Despite the Seven Years' War, dozens of astronomers were dispatched to observing points around the world at great expense and personal danger: several of them died in the endeavour. The various results were collated by Jérôme"
"about 10 times better than a high-definition TV and those images are acquired at a temporal cadence of one every 10 seconds. This is something we've never had before"". The 2012 transit gave scientists a number of research opportunities. These included: North America: Europe: Asia: Australasia: Others: Transit of Venus, 2012 The 2012 transit of Venus, when the planet Venus appeared as a small, dark spot passing across the face of the Sun, began at 22:09 UTC on 5 June 2012, and finished at 04:49 UTC on 6 June. Depending on the position of the observer, the exact times varied"
"scale model of the system where Capella A was represented by spheres 13 and 7 inches across, separated by ten feet. The red dwarfs were then each 0.7 inches across and they were separated by 420 feet. At this scale, the two pairs are 21 miles apart. Capella A consists of two yellow evolved stars that have been calculated to orbit each other every 104.02128 ± 0.00016 days, with a semimajor axis of 111.11 ± 0.10 million km (0.74272 ± 0.00069 au), roughly the distance between Venus and the Sun. The pair is a non-eclipsing binary—that is, as seen from"
"up to that time. The 2012 transit provided scientists with a number of other research opportunities, particularly in the refinement of techniques to be used in the search for exoplanets. Venus, with an orbit inclined by 3.4° relative to the Earth's, usually appears to pass under (or over) the Sun at inferior conjunction. A transit occurs when Venus reaches conjunction with the Sun at or near one of its nodes—the longitude where Venus passes through the Earth's orbital plane (the ecliptic)—and appears to pass directly across the Sun. Although the inclination between these two orbital planes is only 3.4°, Venus"
"perturbations of the orbit of Uranus. On-going mutual perturbations of the planets cause long-term quasi-periodic variations in their orbital elements, most apparent when two planets' orbital periods are nearly in sync. For instance, five orbits of Jupiter (59.31 years) is nearly equal to two of Saturn (58.91 years). This causes large perturbations of both, with a period of 918 years, the time required for the small difference in their positions at conjunction to make one complete circle, first discovered by Laplace. Venus currently has the orbit with the least eccentricity, i.e. it is the closest to circular, of all the"
"astronomical events. The first such transit to be predicted and observed was the Transit of Venus, 1639, seen and recorded by English astronomers Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree. The observation by Mikhail Lomonosov of the transit of 1761 provided the first evidence that Venus had an atmosphere, and the 19th-century observations of parallax during Venus transits allowed the distance between the Earth and Sun to be accurately calculated for the first time. Transits can only occur either in early June or early December, these being the points at which Venus crosses the ecliptic (the orbital plane of the Earth), and"
"on 26 October 664, and the next transit of this type will occur on 14 December 5934. The simultaneous occurrence of a transit of Venus and a transit of Earth is extremely rare, and will next occur in the year 571,471. Transit of Earth from Mars A transit of Earth across the Sun as seen from Mars takes place when the planet Earth passes directly between the Sun and Mars, obscuring a small part of the Sun's disc for an observer on Mars. During a transit, Earth would be visible from Mars as a small black disc moving across the"
"Octaeteris In astronomy, an octaeteris (plural: octaeterides) is the period of eight solar years after which the moon phase occurs on the same day of the year plus one or two days. This period is also in a very good synchronicity with five Venusian visibility cycles (the Venusian synodic period) and thirteen Venusian revolutions around the sun (Venusian sidereal period). This means, that if Venus is visible beside the moon, after eight years the two will be again close together near the same date of the calendar. The octaeteris, also known as ""oktaeteris"", was noted by Cleostratus in ancient Greece"
"observed from Earth. Successive inferior conjunctions of Venus repeat very near a 13:8 orbital resonance (Earth orbits 8 times for every 13 orbits of Venus), shifting 144° upon sequential inferior conjunctions. The resonance 13:8 ratio is approximate. 8/13 is approximately 0.615385 while Venus orbits the Sun in 0.615187 years. Naked eye observations of Venus during daylight hours exist in several anecdotes and records. Astronomer Edmund Halley calculated its maximum naked eye brightness in 1716, when many Londoners were alarmed by its appearance in the daytime. French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte once witnessed a daytime apparition of the planet while at a"