- Transit of Venus/ Wikipedia
Today, the transit of Venus across the Sun will begin around 6 p.m. EDT and end at roughly 12:50 a.m. EDT Wednesday morning. A transit of Venus takes place when the planet Venus, also known as “the Bright and Morning Star,” passes directly between the Sun and Earth, becoming visible against the Sun. During the transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun.
The event will be webcast at
CBSNews.com’s live feed and
LIVE WEBCAST OF THE 2012 Transit , among others.
Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena. They occur in a pattern that repeats every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years. The prior transit took place on 8 June 2004.
This is the once in a life time event for most people since it will be the last such Venus transit until 2117. This is also one of the captivating celestial events in recent memory. On May 20, the moon passed in front of the Sun, producing an annular solar eclipse, also known as “Wedding Ring” eclipse in the watchers’ circle.
Even though this is a planetary alignment of Earth, Venus and Sun, there seems to be no serious concern inside the scientific community for any earthquake event.
