Stunning New Footage Of Venus Transit

Nasa Releases Stunning New Ultra-High Definition Footage Of 2012 Venus Transit -- The Telegraph

One of the rarest astronomical events is captured on film in stunning detail as the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, a transit that won't occur again until 2117.

The amazing video was captured by Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), the most advanced spacecraft ever designed to study the sun.

On June 5 2012, SDO collected images of the rarest predictable solar event - the transit of Venus across the face of the sun.

This event happens in pairs eight years apart that are separated from each other by 105 or 121 years. The last transit was in 2004 and the next will not happen until 2117.

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My Comment: Cool video.

Watch The Venus Transit Online

Missed the Venus Transit in 2012? Watch It Online Until 2117 -- PC World

Did you miss the transit of Venus in front of the sun yesterday? Were there clouds in your skies? Stuck in Antarctica? If you didn’t catch this last alignment of our cloud-shrouded planetary neighbor and our closest star until 2115, here are some ways to re-live the transit.

My favorite video was taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, a spacecraft dedicated to observing the sun. You can watch Venus passing in front of the sun and its giant coronal loops, where plasma moves along the sun’s magnetic field lines.

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My Comment: Watching it online is not the same as watching it outside.

Watch Live: Last Transit of Venus

Broadcasting live with Ustream

Watch Live: Last Transit of Venus of Your Lifetime -- Wired

With millions of expected viewers around the world, the Transit of Venus is today’s event to watch. The rare celestial show — the last to occur for more than a hundred years — will be starting just after 3 p.m. PDT. You can join one of the many of the Venus-watching parties across the country or make a simple and safe viewer to see the event from your own backyard.

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My Comment: Cool.

The Last Transit of Venus in Our Lifetime Will Help Us Find Other Planets Feature

2004 Venus Transit Composite This filtered composite image was captured from Donja Stubica, Croatia, during the 2004 transit of Venus. This time, the planet will cross the sun's northern hemisphere. Andjelko Gilvar/ESO

How The Last Transit of Venus in Our Lifetime Will Help Us Find Other Planets Feature -- Popular Science

Tomorrow's historical astronomical event is not just a beautiful novelty.

Tomorrow, skywatchers the world over will look up to behold a strange sight witnessed just seven times in the past five centuries. The last transit of Venus until 2117 is an occasion for astronomical celebration and historic import — we’ll be watching something the greatest astronomers of any age have traveled the world to see.

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My Comment: Mercury has provided the same data .... but Venus .... because of it's size .... will probably provide more accurate info.

Venus To Cross The Face Of The Sun Tomorrow

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

Venus To Put On Sun Spectacular -- BBC

Planet Venus is set to move across the face of the Sun as viewed from Earth.

The more than six-and-a-half-hour transit, which starts just after 22:00 GMT (23:00 BST) on Tuesday is a very rare astronomical phenomenon that will not be witnessed again until 2117.

Observers will position themselves in northwest America, the Pacific, and East Asia to catch the whole event.

But some part of the spectacle will be visible across a much broader swathe of Earth's surface, weather permitting.

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Update: You'll have to get up early on Wednesday to catch Venus transit across the face of the sun - for the last time in 105 years -- Daily Mail

My Comment: So I will have to wait until 2117 for the next event. Hmmmm .... I have doubts that I will still be around .... better pray for good weather tomorrow.

NASA Wanted To Send Astronauts To Venus

NASA Wanted Astronauts to View Venus Up-Close -- Discovery News

In a little over a week, we’re all going to be looking skyward and focusing our sights (safely) on Venus as it crosses the disk of the sun. It's going to be a fantastic view, especially since most of us only ever see Venus as a tiny dot of light in the sky. But in 1967, NASA considered giving three astronauts a really rare view of Venus by sending them on a flyby around the second planet from the sun.

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My Comment: NASA dreamed big then.

Hot Atmosphere Of Venus Might Cool Interior Of Earth’s Sister Planet

Temperature distribution within Venus and local mobilization at the surface. (Credit: DLR)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 21, 2010) — The heat in the atmosphere of Venus, induced from a strong greenhouse warming, might actually have a cooling effect on the planet's interior. This counter-intuitive theory is based on calculations from a new model presented at the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) in Rome.

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Escaping Ions Explain The Mystery Of Venus

The 2004 Venus in situ exploration mission aimed to collect information about the extreme atmospheric conditions that render the planet very different from Earth. Credit: NASA

From Cosmos:

ASHLAND, OREGON: The difference in the escape velocities of ions may help to explain why Venus isn’t more like Earth, scientists say, and it may come down to a planet’s core.

Oxygen and hydrogen ions in Venus’s atmosphere do not behave the same when exposed to the solar wind, according to scientists at the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Helsinki.

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Venus 'Still Volcanically Active'

Volcanic peak Idunn Mons. Bright colours indicate recent flow

From The BBC:

Data from Europe's Venus Express probe suggests that Earth's neighbour may still be able to erupt volcanoes.

Relatively young lava flows have been identified on the planet's surface by the spacecraft's infrared instrument.

The flows show up as having a different composition to the surrounding surface material.

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Russia Plots Return To Venus

The Venera missions produced tantalising images of the Venusian surface.

From The BBC:

Densely clouded in acid-laden mist, Venus used to be the Soviet Union's favourite target for planetary exploration.

Now, after a lull of almost three decades, Russia is making plans for a new mission to the "morning star" and has invited Western scientists to participate.

Last week, Moscow-based space research institute IKI hosted an international conference aimed at luring scientists from Europe and possibly other countries such as the US into the ambitious project, officially scheduled for launch in 2016.

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