The most recent transit of Venus when observed from Earth took place on June 8 2004. The event received significant attention, since it was the first Venus transit to take place after the invention of broadcast media. No human alive at the time had witnessed a previous Venus transit, since the previous Venus transit took place on December 6 1882.
Contents |
Visibility
The transit was best seen from Europe, Asia and Africa, although eastern North America caught the end of it. Western North America did not see it at all, nor did Hawaii or New Zealand. The regions from which the transit were visible are shown on the map to the right.
Timing
The following table and image give times for various events (respectively, first contact, second contact, the mid-point, third contact and fourth contact) during of the transit on June 8, 2004 for a hypothetical observer at the center of the Earth. Due to parallax, actual observed times may differ by as much as ±7 minutes at different observation points on Earth.
| Times (UTC) for observations of the transit on June 8, 2004 |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | II | Mid | III | IV |
| 05:13:29 | 05:32:55 | 08:19:44 | 11:06:33 | 11:25:59 |
The path of Venus across the Sun (moving left to right)
|
||||
Images
Media
-
Animation of the transit of Venus
Image:Transit of Venus animation.ogg Animation depicting the transit of Venus from the perspective of Earth. (4.2 MB, ogg/Theora format).2004 Venus transit in UV
Image:2004 Venus transit UV.ogg Close-up video of the 2004 Venus transit, recorded in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. (1.6 MB, ogg/Theora format). - Problems seeing the videos? See media help.
See also
External links
- The Venus Transit Across the Sun; observations from Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY, USA
- Several videos of the transit as seen by the TRACE satellite
- Archive of observations in Bangalore
- Predictions for the 2004 Transit of Venus
- The Transit of Venus: Where to See It
- Photos taken by BBC News readers
- Venus Transit 2004 Homepage at European Southern Observatory
- Venus Transit 2004 - Miami, FL, USA
- HM Nautical Almanac Office: 2004 Transit of Venus
- Astronomy Picture of the Day 2004 June 10 -- Transit closeup photo
