In transit

A rare upcoming astronomical event, a Transit of Venus will take place on Tuesday 8th June (only 5 transits of Venus have been observed in recorded history). For Melbourne, it will begin at 3:08pm but we won’t get to see the whole transit as the sun will set just after 5:00 pm. Transits of Venus come in pairs (next one will be on 7 June 2012) and the one after that will be on 2117. Historically, the transit has been important for measuring the distance to the sun, and that’s exactly what Captain Cook was there to do in 1769 (finding Oz was just a side effect!)

I’ll be with the ASV on late Tuesday afternoon at Victoria Gardens Shopping Centre to see the event. Never look at the sun directly with the naked eye; you’ll go blind just like Galileo.

chris on June 6th 2004 in Uncategorized

3 Responses to “In transit”

  1. Pc responded on 08 Jun 2004 at 11:08 am #

    Going blind, I thought that only happen with too much self indulges….

    Make sure you have those Bolle sunnies. Enjoy.

    So how far are we from the sun now?

  2. chris responded on 10 Jun 2004 at 12:20 am #

    Just under 150 million Km from the sun - only 8 minutes (if you can travel at the speed of light, which I know you can :)

  3. peterc responded on 10 Jun 2004 at 9:17 am #

    Is that an express route to the Sun at 8 minutes, or stopping all stations?