Though it’s been cloudy for three days straight in my neck
of the woods, does the June 6, 2012 transit of the planet Venus across the face
of the Sun really the once-in-the-lifetime astronomical event it was touted to
be?
By: Ringo Bones
I just caught the one back in 2004 using an improvised
welder’s protective glass as an ad hoc filter for my trusty-but-rusty
Celestron. And comparing one view via the “protected” naked eye observations,
all I can say that the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun would seem
rather “abstract” to the astronomically uninitiated; But why the fuss across
the global astronomical community?
First of all -
transit is an astronomical term defined by the passage of a celestial body
across a line or region in the sky. A star in transit when on the celestial
meridian; the planets Mercury and Venus appear as dark spots when the transit
across the disc or face of the Sun; a moon or a natural satellite is in transit
when it crosses the disc of the primary planet such as Jupiter. Transits that
are visible to the (protected if necessary) naked eye are extremely rare
astronomical events.
The transit of Venus across the Sun’s disc only happens
every 105 years, and they usually last about seven hours. The first recorded
viewing of the phenomena was back in 1639 Jeremiah Horrocks and William
Crabtree. Another reason why the astronomical community makes a big deal about
it is that transits are a very reliable method of confirming the existence of
planets orbiting in other star systems / solar systems. In other words, they
are a very useful method in finding extra-solar planets tens or even hundreds
of light-years away.
