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Astro

Venus Transit on June 8 — You gotta see this!

I don’t have much time to write about this — I’m very busy — but check out the following link and do your own homework. It’ll be worth it, I promise.

A Venus transit is where the planet Venus travels across the disc of the Sun. So it’s like a solar eclipse, except that Venus is only a small disc and won’t cover the Sun at all. It will be visible to the naked eye, provided that one uses welding glass to cut down the brightness of the Sun as well as the infrared and ultraviolet radiation which can damage the eyes very quickly. I’ve personally waited for this event for over 7 years, having read about it in an astronomy book. The rest of the world has been waiting 120 years since the last Venus transit.

Because it is also an inner planet, Mercury can also transit the disc of the Sun. This is more common than a Venus transit, but it is still a rare enough event to be quite special. I hope you can find a local astronomy club or observatory (who will have the necessary equipment) that you can join to watch this event. It happens Tuesday, June 8 during the day (obviously). It lasts for over 6 hours.

2004 Transit of Venus

If you are in Beijing, contact me and I’ll bring you along on my journey to the stars.

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