The upcoming solar eclipse

http://www.venus-transit.de/ ^ | me

[Patrick1]

Wonder how George W. Bush caused this to happen?

[theFIRMbss]

[traumer]

The 'Moon God' children will go beserk.... !

:o)

[aft_lizard]

Darwinism at its full glory.

[aft_lizard]

Darwinism at its full glory.

[petuniasevan]

We have annular eclipses QUITE OFTEN. They are caused by the Moon's passing in front of the Sun, just like a total eclipse. Only difference is the Moon's distance from Earth makes its angular size too small to totally cover the Sun.

A transit of Venus (or Mercury) is a different story. Those are NOT referred to as eclipses as they do NOT measurably affect the amount of sunlight reaching Earth.

However, it IS true that there has not been a Venus transit since 1882.

---

Here is a quote from Fred Espenak at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center:

The transit or passage of a planet across the face of the Sun is a relatively rare occurrence. As seen from Earth, only transits of Mercury and Venus are possible. On average, there are 13 transits of Mercury each century. In contrast, transits of Venus occur in pairs with more than a century separating each pair.

No living person has seen a transit of Venus because the most recent one occurred in 1882. This situation is about to change since Venus will transit the Sun on Tuesday, 2004 June 08. The entire event will be widely visible from the Europe, Africa and Asia as shown in the map in Figure 1 ( Low Res or High Res). Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia will witness the beginning of the transit but the Sun will set before the event ends. Similarly, observers in western Africa, eastern North America, the Caribbean and most of South America will see the end of the event since the transit will already be in progress at sunrise from those locations.

The principal events occurring during a transit are conveniently characterized by contacts, analogous to the contacts of an annular solar eclipse. The transit begins with contact I, the instant the planet's disk is externally tangent with the Sun. Shortly after contact I, the planet can be seen as a small notch along the solar limb. The entire disk of the planet is first seen at contact II when the planet is internally tangent with the Sun. During the next several hours, the silhouetted planet slowly traverses the brilliant solar disk. At contact III, the planet reaches the opposite limb and once again is internally tangent with the Sun. Finally, the transit ends at contact IV when the planet's limb is externally tangent to the Sun. Contacts I and II define the phase called ingress while contacts III and IV are known as egress. Position angles for Venus at each contact are measured counterclockwise from the north point on the Sun's disk.

                                         Table 1

                     Geocentric Phases of the 2004 Transit of Venus 

                            Event         Universal        Position 
                                            Time            Angle

                            Contact I      05:13:29         116°
                            Contact II     05:32:55         119°
                            Greatest       08:19:44         166°
                            Contact III    11:06:33         213°
                            Contact IV     11:25:59         216°

[Blood of Tyrants]

REPENT! THE END IS NEAR! REPENT!

[petuniasevan]

Your comment makes no sense. Zero.

Astronomy/astrophysics going on here, and you claim Darwinism is responsible. Care to elaborate, and maybe tell a seasoned amateur astronomer what could possibly offend you about a planet passing in front of the Sun?

[evets]

Maybe it's a reference to the European 'Darwin' project:

http://ast.star.rl.ac.uk/darwin/

The European Space Agency has selected the "InfraRed Space Interferometer - Darwin"

[djf]

I called it an eclipse, and I called it annular.

So shoot me.

I will admit that my favorite text on astronomy refers only to lunar-solar events.

The Flammarion Book of Astronomy,
prepared under the direction of Gabrielle Camille Flammarion,
Flammarion et cie, Paris, 1880.


The 1960 Simon and Schuster hardcover cost me 40 bucks about twenty years ago.

[evets]

Also,
Darwin's theories of evolution, involved studies of life,
in the islands of the Galapagos region, which were visited
by Captain Cook, who observed the Venus transit.</stream>

[Robert A Cook PE]

Hmmmmn.

The fiery mounds (and mountains) of Venus will (partially) eclipse the son, eh?

(Sounds like what the democrats want to happen in November's election so Hillary can begin her 2008 campaign....)

[djf]

I just thought after last years Mars approach, the three comets that are right now in the inner solar system, and the fact that this event usually happens only every few hundred years, people might like to know.

[Verginius Rufus]

Captain Cook was killed in 1779. There were two transits of Venus in the 19th century.

[evets]

click the pic

[Robert A Cook PE]

Certainly!

And I figured I'd pull your leg a bit. 8<)

Since it is such an opun and shut case of circular logic.

But, what goes around, comes around.....

[Robert A Cook PE]

Today, Vassar College would be more interested in lookin' for photo's of Venus under any Bush they could lay hands on ....

Several VAssar students, in fact, were very specific about that fact during the abortion death-rights march in DC this weekend.

[evets]

Here's an undated photo of Cook viewing the transit of Venus.

[djf]

Well, all the roosters will crow, the sunlight will be diminished by what? .0000000904 percent or so?

Sales of suglasses will plummet.
;-)

Invest in sun tanning booths NOW!