Community Corner

A Rare Celestial Event: Venus in Transit

The next time it happens is 105 years from 2012, so you might want to catch it on Tuesday afternoon.

A little after 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Edmonds residents will have an opportunity to witness one of the rarest predictable celestial events: a transit of Venus across the sun.

(You should never look directly at the sun with your naked eyes. Here are some safe viewing events in Puget Sound.)

Often referred to as the "Evening Star" or "Morning Star," Venus is the brightest natural object in our sky after the sun and the moon. As the second planet from the sun, it's closer to the sun than the Earth is. 

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A "transit" of Venus occurs when Venus passes between the Earth and the sun in such a way that we can see Venus's silhouette backlit by the sun's brilliant light. It last happened in 2004, but it won't happen again until 2117.

Were Venus either large enough or close enough to block out the sun's light as it passed, we would call this event an eclipse, as we do when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun.

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Venus, however, is a little bit smaller than the Earth and about 27 million miles away. When its tiny silhouette is viewed against the sun, which lies another 66 million miles beyond, it can offer viewers a dramatic sense of the solar's system's vast scale.

Assuming sufficiently clear skies, the transit will be visible for us starting at about 3:04 p.m. on Tuesday and will remain so until the sun sets. Those in the central and western U.S. will be able to enjoy it longer, while viewers in Alaska, Japan and large sections of Australia, China and Russia will be able to see it in its entirety.

By the time the sun rises on the East Coast on Wednesday, Venus will have completed the transit.

How to watch

Never look directly at the sun with your naked eyes. You can damage your eyes. Likewise, viewing the sun with either binoculars or a telescope can direct the sun's magnified rays directly into your eyeball and cause serious injury―think about what happens to ants under a magnifying glass.

Sunglasses do not provide sufficient protection. If you know someone who works in plumbing or construction, ask them if they have any No. 14 welder's glass. You can look directly at the sun through this material without risking injury.

If you have a tripod or a partner and a pair of steady hands, you can use binoculars to project an image of the Sun onto a white piece of paper. Remember, don't look through your binoculars at the sun!

Though it's not quite the same as viewing the phenomenon in person, there are several places to watch the transit of Venus online:

Lastly, there's Don Pettit, an astronaut currently aboard the International Space Station. Pettit's not doing a video feed, but he will become the first person to ever photograph a transit of Venus from outer space


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