"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"
"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, 2004 The second most recent transit of Venus observed from Earth took place on June 8, 2004. The event received significant attention, since it was the first Venus transit after the invention of broadcast media. No human alive at the time had witnessed a previous Venus transit since that transit occurred on December 6, 1882. European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the European Association for Astronomy Education (EAAE) launched the VT-2004 project, together with the Institut de Mécanique Céleste et de Calcul des Éphémérides (IMCCE) and the Observatoire de Paris in France, as well as the Astronomical Institute"
"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"
"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"
"was not visible at all from western North America, southern South America, Hawaii, or New Zealand. The regions from which the transit were visible are shown on the map to the right. The following table and image give times for various events (respectively, first contact, second contact, the midpoint, third contact and fourth contact) during the transit on June 8, 2004 for a hypothetical observer at the center of the Earth. Due to parallax, times observed at different points on Earth may differ from the following by as much as ±7 minutes. Transit of Venus, 2004 The second most recent"
"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"
"243 years the transits of Venus return. The 1874 transit is a member of the 243-year cycle #1. The 1882 transit is a member of #2. The 2004 transit is a member of #3 and the 2012 transit is a member of #4. The 2117 transit is a member of #1 and so on. However, the ascending node (December transits) of the orbit of Venus moves backwards after each 243 years so the transit of 2854 is the last member of series #3 instead of series #1. The descending node (June transits) moves forwards, so the transit of 3705 is"
"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"
"June 2004 (preceded by transits on 9 December 1874 and 6 December 1882); the next pair of transits will occur on 10–11 December 2117 and in December 2125. The entire transit was visible from the western Pacific Ocean, northwesternmost North America, northeastern Asia, Japan, the Philippines, eastern Australia, New Zealand, and high Arctic locations including northernmost Scandinavia, and Greenland. In North America, the Caribbean, and northwestern South America, the beginning of the transit was visible on 5 June until sunset. From sunrise on 6 June, the end of the transit was visible from South Asia, the Middle East, east Africa,"
"Transit of Venus, 1882 The 1882 transit of Venus, which took place on 6 December 1882 (13:57 to 20:15 UTC), was the second and last transit of Venus of the 19th century, the first having taken place eight years earlier in 1874. Many an expedition was sent by European powers to describe both episodes, eight of them alone were approved and financed in 1882 by the United States Congress. Edward James Stone organized the British expeditions sent to observe the transit. Stephen Joseph Perry and Commander Pelham Aldrich, as captain of HMS , observed the transit from an improvised tent"
"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"
"infrequently. Such an event last occurred on 22 September 373,173 BC and will next occur on 26 July 69,163, and again on 29 March 224,508. The simultaneous occurrence of a solar eclipse and a transit of Venus is currently possible, but very rare. The next solar eclipse occurring during a transit of Venus will be on 5 April 15,232. The last time a solar eclipse occurred during a transit of Venus was on 1 November 15,607 BC. The day after the Venerean transit of 3 June 1769 there was a total solar eclipse, which was visible in Northern America, Europe"
"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"
"grazes the Sun during a transit. In this case it is possible that in some areas of the Earth a full transit can be seen while in other regions there is only a partial transit (no second or third contact). The last transit of this type was on 6 December 1631, and the next such transit will occur on 13 December 2611. It is also possible that a transit of Venus can be seen in some parts of the world as a partial transit, while in others Venus misses the Sun. Such a transit last occurred on 19 November 541"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"8 years. Thus, the 243-year cycle is relatively stable, but the number of transits and their timing within the cycle will vary over time. Since the 243:395 Earth:Venus commensurability is only approximate, there are different sequences of transits occurring 243 years apart, each extending for several thousand years, which are eventually replaced by other sequences. For instance, there is a series which ended in 541 BC, and the series which includes 2117 only started in AD 1631. Ancient Indian, Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian and Chinese observers knew of Venus and recorded the planet's motions. The early Greek astronomers called Venus by"
"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"
"is an extremely rare event, and the last solar transit of the planet before 2004 was in 1882. The most recent solar transit was in 2012; the next one will not occur until 2117. The Venus Express spacecraft formerly in orbit around the planet probed deeper into the atmosphere using infrared imaging spectroscopy in the 1–5 µm spectral range. The JAXA probe Akatsuki (Venus Climate Orbiter), launched in May 2010, is studying the planet for a period of two years, including the structure and activity of the atmosphere, but it failed to enter Venus orbit in December 2010. A second"
"BC, and the next transit of this type will occur on 14 December 2854. These effects occur due to parallax, since the size of the Earth affords different points of view with slightly different lines of sight to Venus and the Sun. It can be demonstrated by closing an eye and holding a finger in front of a smaller more distant object; when you open the other eye and close the first, the finger will no longer be in front of the object. The simultaneous occurrence of a transit of Mercury and a transit of Venus does occur, but extremely"
"of Mercury from Saturn and a transit of Venus from Saturn. No missions were planned to coincide with the transit of Earth visible from Mars on 11 May 1984 and the Viking missions had been terminated a year previously. Consequently, the next opportunity to observe such an alignment will be in 2084. On December 21, 2012, the ""Cassini–Huygens"" probe, in orbit around Saturn, observed the planet Venus transiting the Sun. On 3 June 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"
"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"
"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"
"Puebla, Mexico), Octave de Bernardières (leader of expedition to San Bernardo, Chile), and the naval officer Georges-Ernest Fleuriais (leader of expedition to the coast of the province Santa Cruz in Patagonia). Transit of Venus, 1882 The 1882 transit of Venus, which took place on 6 December 1882 (13:57 to 20:15 UTC), was the second and last transit of Venus of the 19th century, the first having taken place eight years earlier in 1874. Many an expedition was sent by European powers to describe both episodes, eight of them alone were approved and financed in 1882 by the United States Congress."
"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, 1639 The first known observations and recording of a transit of Venus were made in 1639 by the English astronomers Jeremiah Horrocks and his friend and correspondent William Crabtree. The pair made their observations independently on 4 December that year (24 November under the Julian calendar then used in England); Horrocks from Carr House, then in the village of Much Hoole, Lancashire, and Crabtree from his home in Broughton, near Manchester. The friends, followers of the new astronomy of Johannes Kepler, were self-taught mathematical astronomers who had worked methodically to correct and improve Kepler's Rudolphine tables by"
"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"
"currently four such active series, containing from 8 to 25 transits. A new one is set to begin in 2394. The last series ending was in 1211. No one has ever seen a transit of Earth from Mars, but the next transit will take place on November 10, 2084. The last such transit took place on May 11, 1984. During the event, the Moon could almost always also be seen in transit, although due to the distance between Earth and Moon, sometimes one body completes the transit before the other begins (this last occurred in the 1800 transit, and will"
"telemetry session failed to occur. On May 19, 1961, ""Venera 1"" passed within of Venus. With the help of the British radio telescope at Jodrell Bank, some weak signals from ""Venera 1"" may have been detected in June. Soviet engineers believed that Venera-1 failed due to the overheating of a solar-direction sensor. Venera 1 Venera 1 ( meaning ""Venus 1""), also known as Venera-1VA No.2 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 8 was the first spacecraft to fly past Venus, as part of the Soviet Union's Venera programme. Launched in February 1961, it flew past Venus on 19 May"
"1769 Transit of Venus observed from Tahiti On June 3, 1769, British navigator Captain James Cook, British naturalist Joseph Banks, British astronomer Charles Green and Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander recorded the transit of Venus on the island of Tahiti during Cook's first voyage around the world. During a transit, Venus appears as a small black disc travelling across the Sun. This unusual astronomical phenomenon takes place in a pattern that repeats itself every 243 years. It includes two transits that are eight years apart, separated by breaks of 121.5 and 105.5 years. These men, along with a crew of scientists,"