Last week I continued to read Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, which notes that the next transit of Venus, a rare occurrence in which the planet crosses in front of the Sun as seen from Earth, would be June 8, 2004. I was like, whoa, that’s soon! Tomorrow, in fact. It lasts a few hours, and takes place in pairs spanning eight years (the next transit will be in 2012), but each pair is separated by more than a century (the next after that will be in 2117). Regarding visibility in North America, part of the egress–yes, I’ve been reading up–will be visible in the east, but not towards the west. NASA predicts visibility beginning at 7:06 a.m. for Washington, D.C. Kind of cool. But needless to say, I will be asleep, rare celestial occurrence or no.
[Update (8 June): images via NASA spacecraft.]
One reply on “Venus crossing”
The transit of Venus is an interesting sidelight in Australian history, as it was on his voyage home to England in ‘The Endeavour’ after James Cook’s observation of the transit of Venus that he circumnavigated New Zealand and ‘discovered’ (the Aboriginals had been there 20,000 years or so before him) the Eastern coastline of Australia in 1770.