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Once in a lifetime opportunity of seeing the Transit of Venus that will take place on 6th June
Topic Started: 26 May 2012, 10:17 PM (50 Views)
jessie
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An eclipse of the Sun occurs when the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun. Since the planets Mercury and Venus orbit inside the path of the Earth around the Sun, they too can come between the Earth and the Sun. However since these planets have a tiny apparent diameter as seen from Earth, the Transit is seen as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun.

Transits of Mercury occur on average once in 7.4 years. Mercury's 10 seconds of arc apparent diameter is just a tiny 0.5% of the Sun.


Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena. They occur with pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of 105.5 years and 121.5 years. The diameter of Venus at 58 seconds of arc is 3% of the Sun. It is barely visible to the naked eye without any magnification.

Since the invention of the telescope, the first known observation, was made by Jeremiah Horrocks from his home near Preston in England on December 4, 1639. As an early example of international scientific collaboration, for the next Transit of Venus in 1761, numerous expeditions from Britain, Austria and France travelled to destinations around the world, so that precise observations could be made to calculate the distance to the Sun, as proposed by Edmund Halley in 1678. On the basis of his observation from the Petersburg Observatory, Mikhail Lomonosov predicted the existence of an atmosphere on Venus.

read more here
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/120527/Plus/plus_06.html

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Audi-Tek
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NASA TV's coverage of the Venus Transit.



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NASA / ESA file


LIVE VIDEO — Watch NASA TV's live coverage of the rare event known as the Venus Transit in which Venus passes in front of the sun.


Video Link .............. http://video.msnbc.msn.com/msnbc.com/47695781/#47695781
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skibboy
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http://blogs.esa.int/venustransit/

enjoy! ok-
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