The dates advance by about 2 days per 243 year cycle in the Gregorian calendar. They occur in a pattern that generally repeats every 243 years, with a pair of transits 8 years apart in December ( Gregorian calendar) followed by a gap of 121.5 years, then another pair 8 years apart in June, followed by another gap, of 105.5 years. Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena. Although the diameter of Venus is more than three times that of the Moon, Venus appears smaller and travels more slowly across the face of the Sun, because it is much farther away from Earth. A transit is similar to a solar eclipse by the Moon. The duration of such transits is usually several hours (the transit of 2012 lasted 6 hours and 40 minutes). During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black dot moving across the face of the Sun. False-color ultraviolet and visible spectrum images of the 2012 transit of Venus, as taken from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Image of the 2012 transit taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraftĪ transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet, becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk.
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