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On June 5 and 6, 2012 the planet Venus will pass in front of the Sun for the last time this century. Millions around the world will witness this rare astronomical phenomenon.
This website is entirely devoted to the transit of Venus: its history, where and when you should watch it and what you can do to get involved in the observation. Learn more...
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Monthly Archives: September 2011
The Royal Society of New Zealand is joining with other organisations to celebrate the 2012 transit of Venus, with events centring on Tolaga Bay and Gisborne. Tolaga Bay (Ūawa) is the place where two hundred and forty two years ago, … Continue reading
Under a suffocating blanket of sulfuric acid clouds, the weather on Venus is extreme and monotonous: 800 degrees Fahrenheit, a crushing atmosphere more than 90 times the pressure of Earth’s with negligible seasonal effects. Higher up, however, the weather gets … Continue reading
In the Fall issue of The Universe in the Classroom, published by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Chuck Bueter explains why students shouldn’t miss the 2012 transit of Venus, and discusses how you can bring this experience into the … Continue reading
When Robert Stawell Ball opened up the domes of Dunsink Observatory on December 6, 1882, there was little hope that he and his team were about to see anything of the transit of Venus that would take place that day. … Continue reading
The Dutch city of Leiden has been a European locus of scientific activity for well on four centuries, if not longer. In 1638 Galileo chose to have his path-breaking Two New Sciences (Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche, intorno à due nuove … Continue reading
If you ask a random person on the street about what spectacular astronomical event is awaiting us in 2012, you probably won’t hear people referring to the transit of Venus. Likely answers will include the end of the Mayan calendar, … Continue reading
San Bernardo in Chile is an interesting place with regard to the history of the transit of Venus. Here, a short distance from the capital Santiago, a French expedition led by Octave de Bernardières set up its instruments in 1882 … Continue reading
In December 2010 the online citizen science project Planet Hunters was launched. Thousands of ordinary citizens help astronomers to analyse the light curves of nearby stars, recorded by NASA’s Kepler satellite, in order to identify possible transiting exoplanets. Small and … Continue reading
Last August, as part of Australia’s National Science Week, there was a series of three outreach visits concerning the 2012 transit of Venus to areas associated with Sydney Observatory’s 1874 transit of Venus observations. Many physics, chemistry and maths students, … Continue reading
Imagine how a future generation will look back to us, to our observations of the two 21st century transits of Venus. Will they be able to retrieve our experiences, photographs and drawings from the (digital) archives, or will most be … Continue reading
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