The transit of venus

This article should be merged with Transit of venus

THE TRANSIT OF VENUS

A Transit of Venus is the observed passage of the planet Venus across the disk of the Sun. At this time, the planet can be seen as a small black disc slowly moving in front of the Sun. The orbits of Mercury and Venus lie inside the orbit of the Earth, so they are the only planets, which can pass between the Earth and the Sun to produce a transit. Transits are considered pretty rare astronomical events with the transits of Venus being rarer than the transits of Mercury. In the case of Mercury, there are on an average thirteen transits every century or so, however, Venus transits occur approximately four times in 243 years. What makes the transits of Venus more interesting than the corresponding transits of Mercury are that Venus transits occur in pairs of transit events separated by about 8 years and these pairs are separated by over a century each (this is apart from the fact that these transits are rarer than those of Mercury).

External links

• Venus Transit (http://www.venus-transit.de/)
• Venus Trnasit-2004 (http://www.vt-2004.org/)
• Transit of Venus (http://www.transitofvenus.org/)