seen in Visakhapatnam on Wednesday. The next transit of Venus is
likely to be seen after another 105 years. Photo: K.R. Deepak
AP Venus travels across the surface of the sun as seen through a
telescope in Yellowknife, The Northwest Territories.
The Hindu Venus (black spoton the left) crosses the sun's face as seen
from Chennai's Elliot's Beach on Wednesday. Photo: V. Ganesan
The Hindu People queue up along the Elliot's Beach in Chennai to look
through a telescope as Venus orbits between the Sun and the Earth on
Wednesday. Photo: Mukunth
From the U.S. to South Korea, people around the world turned their
attention to the daytime sky on Tuesday and early Wednesday in Asia to
make sure they caught the once-in-a-lifetime sight of the transit of
Venus.
For some astronomers, it wasn't just a rare planetaryspectacle as it
won't be seen for another 105 years.They hoped the passage of Venus
between the Earth and the sun would spark curiosity about the universe
and our place in it.
Sul Ah Chim, a researcher atthe Korea Astronomy and Space Science
Institute in South Korea, said he hopedpeople see life from a larger
perspective, and "not get caught up in their small, everyday
problems."
"When you think about it from the context of the universe, 105 years
is a very short period of time and the Earth is only a small, pale
blue spot," he said.
While astronomers used the latest technology to document the transit,
American astronaut Don Pettit aboard the International Space
Stationwas planning to take photos of the event and post them online.
In Mexico, at least 100 people lined up two hours early to view the
event through telescopes or one of the 150 special viewing glasses on
hand, officials said. Observation points were also set up at a
dozenlocations.
Venus, which is extremely hot, is one of Earth's two neighbours and is
so close in size to our planet that scientists at times call them
near-twins. During the transit, it will appear asa small dot.
The transit is happening during a 6-hour, 40-minutespan that began
just after 2200 GMT. What you can see and for how long depends on what
the sun's doing in your region during that exact window, and the
weather.
Those in most areas of North and Central America will see the start of
the transit until the sun sets, while those in western Asia, the
eastern half of Africa and most of Europe will catch the transit's end
once the sun comes up.
In Hawaii, astronomers planned viewings at Waikiki Beach, Pearl
Harborand Ko Olina. At Waikiki, officials planned to show webcasts as
seen from telescopes from volcanoes Mauna Kea on the Big Island and
Haleakala on Maui.
NASA planned a watch party at its Goddard Visitor Centre in Maryland
with solar telescopes, "Hubble-quality" images from its Solar Dynamics
Observatory Mission and expert commentary and presentations.
Experts from Hong Kong's Space Museum and local astronomical groups
were organising a viewing on Wednesday outside the museum's building
on the Kowloon waterfront overlooking the southern Chinese city's
famed Victoria Harbour.
This will be the seventh transit visible since Germanastronomer
Johannes Kepler first predicted the phenomenon in the 17th century.
Because of the shape and speed of Venus' orbit around the sun and its
relationship to Earth's annual trip, transits occur in pairs separated
by more than a century.
It's nowhere near as dramatic and awe-inspiring as a total solar
eclipse, which sweepsa shadow across the Earth, but there will be six
more of those this decade.
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