Department of Science & Technology, Government of India and Andhra Pradesh State Council of Science & Technology (APCOST) has made all necessary arrangements, through out the state, for safe viewing of the fabulous event of Venus Transit tomorrow. Transits of Venus across the disk of the Sun are among the rarest of planetary alignments, an official release said here today. Indeed, only seven such events occurred since the invention of the telescope and till the beginning of the 21st century (1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882 and 2004). In the 21st century, the transit of Venus took place on 8 June 2004 after a gap of 121.5 years, the earlier one having taken place on December 6, 1882.
In the present epoch the Venus transits occur in pairs with each pair separated by over a century; and show a clear pattern of recurrence at intervals of 8, 121.5, 8 and 105.5 years. The next transit would take place only after a long gap of 105.5 years on 11 December 2117 and December 8, 2125. The disc of the planet Venus, as seen from Earth, is much smaller than that of the Moon. Therefore it makes no more than a small black dot when it moves in front of the face of the Sun. With every transit, depending on the geometry involved, this dot may traverse a different path across the face of the Sun. The entire event of the Venus Transit will be widely visible from the western Pacific, Eastern Asia and Eastern Australia. Most of North and Central America, and northern South America will witness the beginning of the transit (on June 5) but the Sun will set before the event ends. Similarly, observers in Europe, western and central Asia, eastern Africa and Western Australia will see the end of the event since the transit will already be in progress at sunrise from those locations.
In India, the transit would already be in progress at sunrise on June 6, would be visible almost till 1030 hrs. Cautioned that never try to look at the disk of the Sun directly, this could lead to blindness and use a safe solar filter through which may look at the Sun directly and witness the transit. The only safe way of viewing this event will be to project the image of the Sun on to a screen and view the projection, the release added. UNI