From earth we regularly see heavenly bodies pass in front of each other. Once or twice every decade the planet Mercury passes in front of the sun’s disk and we can often see the four Galilean moons transiting Jupiter’s disk. Our moon frequently occults bright stars and sometimes even planets. Other kinds of transits are much rarer. One of the rarerest transits is that of Venus passing in front of the solar disk during its inferior conjunction with the sun. The next transit of Venus will occur on 2012 June 5 and 6.

Go to Predictions for the 2012 transit of Venus

On this website you will find the times of contact computed for your location, information on the visibility of the transit, several detailed maps, a Google Earth file showing the transit circumstances, and much more.

Left: The transit of Venus on 2004 June 8, captured in white light by the Dutch Open Telescope on La Palma. The DOT missed ingress because the sun rose over La Palma only after the start of the transit. Click the image to see a movie. (Movie by courtesy of Frans Snik, DOT-team) Middle: The area of visibility for the 2012 transit of Venus, seen in Google Earth. Right: Ingress on 1882 December 6 as Francesco Denza would have seen it near sunset from the Osservatorio di Moncalieri in Italy. View in Google Earth with sunlight turned on.

Generally, when Venus is in conjunction with the sun, the planet passes above the sun or below the sun, owing to the inclination of its orbit. The intervals between successive pairs of transits of Venus being more than a hundred years, transits of Venus are very rare. When it last occured on 2004 June 8 it was for the first time since 1882. Be sure you don’t miss this one! After 2012 the next transit of Venus will be on 2117 December 11...