Venus in transit to the transit

by Sara E. Pratt
Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Ice ring around the sun with Venus. Taken 4 June 2012 at 2:37 EDT in Port Charlotte, Fla., with an iPhone 4. Elizabeth Talley

5 June 2012 - Reader Elizabeth Talley snapped an iPhone photo of an ice ring around the sun yesterday afternoon in Port Charlotte, Fla., and unexpectedly also captured this image of Venus as it heads toward this evening’s rare celestial event — a transit of the sun. The seven-hour transit, during which the planet will appear as a small black disk moving across the solar face, will begin at 6:03 p.m. EDT and can be viewed with appropriate safety measures or online. The last transit of Venus occurred in 2004, but the next will not occur until 2117, making today's transit the (likely) last viewing opportunity for anyone alive today.


© 2008-2021. All rights reserved. Any copying, redistribution or retransmission of any of the contents of this service without the expressed written permission of the American Geosciences Institute is expressly prohibited. Click here for all copyright requests.