Preparing

Visibility

Transits of Venus across the disk of the Sun are among the rarest of planetary alignments. Only six such events have occurred since the invention of the telescope (1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874 and 1882). The next two transits of Venus will occur on 2004 June 08 and 2012 June 06.

The entire transit (all four contacts) is visible from Europe, Africa (except western parts), Middle East, and most of Asia (except eastern parts).

Courtesy: ESO

The Sun sets while the transit is still in progress from Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, Korea, easternmost China and Southeast Asia. Similarly, the Sun rises with the transit already in progress for observers in western Africa, eastern North America, the Caribbean and most of South America. None of the transit will be visible from southern Chile or Argentina, western North America, Hawaii or New Zealand.

This is one frame of an animation that shows both the track of Venus across the Sun and the regions on Earth where the transit will be visible. Contact times and the exact path Venus will take across the Sun differ slightly for observers in different locations. The path and times shown here are correct for an observer located at Earth's center, but contact times will not differ from these by more than 7 minutes anywhere in which the contacts are visible. The Earth image is centered on the geographical location where Venus lies directly overhead.

Click for the Astronomy magazine animation (AVI, 1,3 Mb) by Francis Reddy.