Arts & Entertainment

Like The Solar Eclipse? You'll Love The Venus Transit

On June 5th Venus will pass in front of the sun just as the moon did on May 20th. Better watch. The next Transit of Venus won't be until December 11, 2117.

 

Skygazers who watched the should get their safety goggles ready for a celestial event that won't occur again for 105 years.

On June 5, the second planet in our solar system will crawl across the surface of the sun making an epic journey called the Transit of Venus.

Find out what's happening in San Leandrowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

If you miss this event, you'll never get a chance to see it. The next Venus Transit won't occur until December 11, 2117.

So says NASA, which has calculated the next 2,000 years worth of transits for anyone who wants to put the events into their day planner.

Find out what's happening in San Leandrowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Sky & Telescope Magazine says the Venus Transit will be visible on the West Coast from 3:06 to 6:26 pm on Tuesday, June 5th.

The Venus Transit is an odd duck, even by astronomical standards.

As NASA explains, the event follows a pattern: two transits occur within eight years of one another. Then there's a long break. This has to do with factors such as the length of a year on Venus (224.701 days) and Earth (365.256 days).

The most recent Venus Transit occurred on June 8, 2004. French composer/conductor Paul Mauriat made a time-lapse video of that event and posted it on YouTube (attached to this story).

Thanks to Jennifer Land, an afterschool Adventure Time teacher at , for alerting Patch to this celestial happening.

Land set up her telescope at the San Leandro Marina on Sunday, May 20th, to offer eclipse watchers a safe glimpse of the sun. One astronomical thing led to another and she mentioned that the Venus Transit was coming.

Otherwise, we'd probably just have worked through June 5th, unaware that we were missing our last chance to watch the goddess strut her stuff.

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