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| Click here to watch a movie of Venus from the perspective of the moving Earth (5MB). You’ll see the position of Venus relative to Earth's orbit (the green line) in the few months leading up to June 8, 2004, and then watch as Venus transits the Sun on that date. | ||||||||||
| During the inferior conjunction of June 8, 2004, Venus will be quite close to one of the nodes and will be seen to transit the southern half of the Sun. Eight years later (June 6, 2012), during another inferior conjunction, Venus will be near the same node. This time, the planet will cross the northern half of the Sun. After that, Venus won’t be near one of the nodes during a conjunction until 2117. | ||||||||||
| Why Is the Pattern of Transits So Irregular? | ||||||||||
| Venus and Earth come into conjunction every 583.92 days. After five conjunctions (583.92 days x 5 = 2919.6 days), approximately eight years have passed (365.25 x 8 = 2922 days). If the number of days were identical, during a conjunction Venus would be in exactly the same place that it was eight years previously. However, the difference of 2.4 days means that Venus comes close to its position of eight years earlier, but it’s not in the precise spot. And that makes all the difference as far as transits are concerned. | ||||||||||
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| 1996:
Venus was too far south to transit the Sun. 2004: Venus will transit the southern hemisphere of the Sun. 2012: Venus will transit the northern hemisphere of the Sun. 2020: Venus will be too far north to transit the Sun. |
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