Transit of Venus

[Dave Monroe]

Scientific American (May 2004)

PLANETARY SCIENCE   

The Transit of Venus
When Venus crosses the face of the sun this June,
scientists will celebrate one of the greatest stories
in the history of astronomy 
By Steven J. Dick 

"We are now on the eve of the second transit of a
pair, after which there will be no other till the
twenty-first century of our era has dawned upon the
earth, and the June flowers are blooming in 2004....
What will be the state of science when the next
transit season arrives God only knows."
--U.S. Naval Observatory astronomer William Harkness,
1882  

June 8, 2004, will dawn just like any other day, but
around the world many lucky individuals will witness
an extraordinarily rare astronomical event. Properly
situated observers equipped with suitable filters for
their eyes, binoculars or telescopes will be able to
see the planet Venus silhouetted against the sun, a
black dot moving across the fiery disk for almost six
hours. The entire transit of Venus will be visible in
most of Asia, Africa and Europe. People in Australia
will see only the opening stages of the transit before
the sun sets there, and Venus will be three quarters
through its crossing by the time the sun rises over
the eastern coasts of the U.S. and South America.
Those unlucky souls on the western coast of the U.S.
and in southwestern South America will miss the event
completely [see illustration on page 104].

A transit of Venus is not nearly as spectacular as a
solar eclipse, caused by the passage of the moon
between Earth and the sun. Although Venus is three and
a half times as large as the moon, it is so much
farther away from Earth that it appears as a speck
against the sun, with only about 3 percent of the
sun's diameter. So why are scientists, educators and
amateur astronomers so excited about the upcoming
transit? Partly because it is such a rare phenomenon -
astronomers have observed a transit of Venus only five
times before, with the last one occurring on December
6, 1882. If sky watchers miss the 2004 transit, they
will have another chance in 2012, but after that they
will have to pass the baton to their descendants in
the year 2117....

http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=000B38FC-1BD5-1085-94F483414B7F0000

Sorry, don't have the online subscription yet, just
plain ol' glossy staple-bound paper, is all, but it's
something like an eight-page article ...


	
		
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