Live: Watching for Venus to Cross the Sun
Credit & Copyright: NASA/SDO
& the AIA, EVE, and HMI teams
Explanation:
Today Venus moves in front of the Sun.
One way to
follow this rare event
is to actively reload the above live image of the Sun during the
right time interval
and look for an unusual circular dark dot.
The smaller sprawling dark areas are
sunspots.
The circular dot is the planet
Venus.
The dark dot will only appear during a few very specific hours,
from about 22:10 on 2012 June 5 through 4:50 2012 June 6,
Universal
Time.
This
transit is the rarest type of solar eclipse known --
much more rare than an eclipse of the Sun by
the Moon or even by the
planet Mercury.
In fact, the next transit of Venus across the Sun will be in 2117.
Anyone with a
clear
view of the Sun can go outside and
carefully view
the transit for themselves by projecting sunlight through a
hole in a card
onto a wall.
Because this
Venus transit is so unusual and
visible from so much of the Earth, it is expected to be one of the
more photographed celestial events in history.
The
above live image on the Sun is being taken by the Earth-orbiting
Solar
Dynamics Observatory and can be updated about every 15 minutes.
Gallery:
Browse the latest Venus transit images
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
