Here Are Pictures and Video of One of the Rarest Cosmic Events That Just Happened
- Posted on June 6, 2012 at 10:45am by
Liz Klimas
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HONOLULU (The Blaze/AP) — Filtering the sun’s light to a minuscule fraction of its true power allowed sky-gazers over the world to watch a silhouetted Venus travel across Earth’s closest star, an extremely rare spectacle that served as a reminder of how tiny our planet really is.
After all, the next transit is 105 years away — likely beyond all of our lifetimes but just another dinky speck in the timeline of the universe.
(Related: Must See: This cosmic event won’t happen again until 2117)
“I’m sad to see Venus go,” electrical engineer Andrew Cooper of the W.M. Keck Observatory told viewers watching a webcast of the transit’s final moments as seen from the nearly 14,000-foot summit of Mauna Kea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island.
From Maui to Mumbai, Mexico to Norway, much of the world watched the 6-hour, 40-minute celestial showcase through special telescopes, live streams on the Internet or with the naked eye through cheap cardboard glasses.
Here are some of the pictures of the celestial crossing:
This photo was sent to us from Blaze reader Joseph Herbst.
From Kolobrzeg, Poland. (Photo: AP//Michael Probst)
From NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory. (Photo: AP/NASA/Solar Dynamic Observatory)
From Bangalore, India. (Photo: AP/Aijaz Rahi)
Here are a few videos documenting the event.
Footage from the European Space Agency:
From German Centre:
From Tokusima, Japan:
From Ventura, Calif.:
For astronomers, the transit wasn’t just a rare planetary spectacle. It was also one of those events they hoped would spark curiosity about the universe and our place in it.
Sul Ah Chim, a researcher at the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute in South Korea, said he hoped people see life from a larger perspective, and “not get caught up in their small, everyday problems.”
“When you think about it from the context of the universe, 105 years is a very short period of time and the Earth is only a small, pale blue spot,” he said.
The transit began just after 6 p.m. EDT in the United States. What observers could see and for how long depended on their region’s exposure to the sun during that exact window of time, and the weather.
Those in most areas of North and Central America saw the start of the transit until sunset, while those in western Asia, the eastern half of Africa and most of Europe could catch the transit’s end once the sun came up.
Hawaii, Alaska, eastern Australia and eastern Asia including Japan, North and South Korea and eastern China get the whole show since the entire transit happens during daylight in those regions.
While astronomers used the latest technology to document the transit, American astronaut Don Pettit aboard the International Space Station was planning to take photos of the event and post them online.
Online streams with footage from telescopes around the world proved popular for NASA and other observatories. A NASA stream midway through the transit had nearly 2 million total views and was getting roughly 90,000 viewers at any given moment.
Meanwhile, terrestrial stargazers were warned to only look at the celestial event with a properly filtered telescope or cardboard eclipse glasses. If the sun is viewed directly, permanent eye damage could result.
A man watches the transit of Venus past the sun through a telescope at the Sydney Observatory in Australia. (Photo: AP/Rob Griffith)
Indian children use cardboard eclipse glasses as they prepare to watch the transit of Venus in Allahabad. (Photo: AP/Rajesh Kumar Singh)
Roy Gal, an assistant astronomer at the University of Hawaii, told those viewing the transit at Waikiki Beach on Oahu that the telescopes were filtered to block all but 1/100th of 1 percent of the sun’s light, plus all its infrared rays to keep the instruments from overheating.
“What we need to do is block out most of the light from the sun so that we don‘t go blind and we don’t melt things,” Gal said in an interview.
In Los Angeles, throngs jammed Mount Hollywood where the Griffith Observatory rolled out the red carpet for Venus. The last time the city witnessed a Venus transit was 130 years ago in 1882. A 2004 transit was not visible from the western U.S.
Telescopes with special filters were set up next to the lawn and people took turns peering at the sun before and during the transit. Astronomers and volunteers lectured about the rarity of a Venus pass to anyone who would listen.
Bo Tan, a 32-year-old software engineer took a half day off from work and went with his co-workers to the observatory. He admitted he wasn’t an astronomy buff but could not miss this opportunity.
He pointed his eclipse glasses at the sun and steadied his Nikon camera behind it to snap pictures.
“It makes you feel like a small speck in the universe,” he said.
Clouds obscured the view in Tokyo, but students and other viewers under clearer skies in southern and western Japan were seen on TV using dark lenses to gaze at the sun. One child remarked that it looked as if the “sun had a mole on its face.”
In India, where astrology is so popular it influences decisions from when to get married to who should run for office – hundreds of enthusiasts from children to the elderly massed at New Delhi’s planetarium to see Venus cut a path across the Sun.
“Celestial events, especially rare ones like this, generate a lot of public interest,” said Rathnasree Nandivada, director of the planetarium. During the last Venus transit in 2004, more than 10,000 people visited the planetarium.
There was no disappointment, however, for those who watched the planetarium‘s webcast of the celestial event from India’s Astronomical Observatory in the Himalayan region of Ladakh – the world’s highest observatory, at 14,800 feet (4,511 meters).
The low oxygen and air pressure along with minimal cloud cover over the station provide optimal conditions for sky viewing, according to Raghu Kalra, one of several volunteers for the Amateur Astronomers Association who provided the webcast feed from Ladakh.
In Mexico, at least 100 people lined up two hours early to view the event through telescopes or one of the 150 special viewing glasses on hand, officials said. Observation points were also set up at a dozen locations.
Venus, which is extremely hot, is one of Earth’s two neighbors and is so close in size to our planet that scientists at times call them near-twins. During the transit, it will appear as a small dot.
This will be the seventh transit visible since German astronomer Johannes Kepler first predicted the phenomenon in the 17th century. Because of the shape and speed of Venus‘ orbit around the sun and its relationship to Earth’s annual trip, transits occur in pairs separated by more than a century.
Jenny Kim, 39, of Honolulu, said she told her 11-year-old son the planet‘s crossing would be the only time he’d get to see the transit in person.
“I don’t know what the future will be, so I think this will be good for him,” Kim said as she snapped photos of the webcast with her smartphone.
Astronomers also hosted viewings at Pearl Harbor and Ko Olina. In Maui, 20 couples renewed their vows during a ceremony tied to the transit at the Hyatt Regency Maui, a spokeswoman said.
Some observers at the University of Alaska, Anchorage gathered on a campus rooftop, peering at Venus through special filtered glasses and telescopes.
“It‘s not really spectacular when you’re looking at it,” Kellen Tyrrell, 13, said. “It‘s just the fact that I’m here seeing it. It’s just so cool that I get to experience it.”
NASA planned a watch party at its Goddard Visitor Center in Maryland with solar telescopes, “Hubble-quality” images from its Solar Dynamics Observatory Mission and expert commentary and presentations.
Most people don‘t tend to gaze at the sun for long periods of time because it’s painful and people instinctively look away. But there’s the temptation to stare at it during sky shows like solar eclipses or transits of Venus.
The eye has a lens and if you stare at the sun, it concentrates sunlight on the retina and can burn a hole through it. It’s similar to when you hold a magnifying glass under the blazing sun and light a piece of paper on fire.
It can take several hours for people to notice problems with their eyes but, by that time, the damage is done and, in some cases, irreversible.
During the 1970 solar eclipse visible from the eastern U.S., 145 burns of the retina were reported, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
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2WarAbnVet
Posted on June 9, 2012 at 1:39pmI guess I’ll wait to catch it next time.
Report Post »cjkosh
Posted on June 8, 2012 at 4:18amGot cloudy here, so couldn’t watch. I would like to say something about how lethal the sun is for your eyes however. I looked at the sun all the time as a child dead-on all the way to my teens. You squint, much as filtering the sun through the fingers to reduce it. The sun isn’t going to burn your retinas out if you only use common sense, much like taking your hand off a hot stove. If you move the hand away a bit, or close your eyes a bit, taa-daa! We really have to nanny people who don’t have any sense to protect themselves?
Report Post »ThriCeSLewis
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 12:52amI couldn’t help but notice a few comments referring to the flat earth myth….
Report Post »I think you would find this video really interesting: http://youtu.be/YUP3a54Tpwk
logan54
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 12:44amIt’s interesting the first video almost makes the transit look sinusoidal…
Report Post »Dragonfire
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 10:44pmCesium
“good for him, he created an 800 degree imperfect sphere that serves no purpose… what an intelligent god…. Just don’t forget… 100s of years ago you god lovers would have certainly been hellbent in opposition to the scientists that destroyed geocentrisim.. just as you do right now with evolution having absolutely no knowledge about the molecular underpinnings of it, yet forming an opinion on it anyway..”
Do you think that the other planets might have some influence on us and our relationship to the Sun? Do you think Earth would work if just it orbited the Sun? Why have a moon then. Tides? Who needs them? Life does as tides cleanses the Earth and feeds many animals and fish and every other living thin on the planet including YOU. You might not believe in God but if God did not believe in you, you would never have existed. He thinks something and then speaks it into existence. Like a dream you can project into reality – now that is Awesome! There are ignorant God believers just like ignorant non God believers. /wink
Report Post »Chuck Stein
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 2:49amJupiter is a vital shield against comets that can hit our pebble. Jovian gravity might even be more important to us than Lunar gravity.
Report Post »Dragonfire
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 10:37pmCesium,
Report Post »Just because people fail to really understand the Bible does not mean God was responsible for the erroneous thought that the Earth was flat. Most people do not know that there was a Heaven and Earth age before this and that God Destroyed that age and then remade the Earth thus the millions of years that the Earth is in age but the short time for this FLESH age. In the first age, we were not in the flesh as dinosaurs so that is why no man or “missing link” since we were created for this new age of testing. God wants the fighting to end so he is giving everyone a chance to chose or not. Science IS God’s way of doing things and is quite compatible with God believers. You just got to rationalize why you don’t want to believe. All the courses of the heavens and how they work were written of thousands of years ago before Galileo lived. One just has to look for it in history books and the accounts written by the earliest theologians and not just pick items or facts to fit one’s desire fore their belief to be justified.
ChiefGeorge
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:46pmMe and my wife saw it…yea!
Report Post »MyzPhoenyx
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:13pmCesium…
Get a grip. Just because you‘re just figuring out that you’re a speck on the edge of creation, doesn‘t mean that all Christians believe that we’re the center of the universe. Heck, it even says in the Bible that we‘re nothing more than a speck of God’s creation. Why did God do it? Well, if you could just make stuff at your good whim… what would you do with it?
Report Post »sirwizard
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 4:56pmMr. Obama said he wants to send a man to the sun so we can see it from that ange. What? Too hot? No, silly. He wants to go at night!
Report Post »SurhanSurhan
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 4:47pmAllahu Akbar!
Report Post »SquidVetOhio
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 3:14pmBig circle, small circle. It’s cool i guess. I’m dying to send a camera to Jupiter to see what in that crazy hurricane looking thing!
Report Post »billrow
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 3:00pmcool
Report Post »blair152
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 2:50pmBeautiful. BEAUTIFUL!
Report Post »Free2speakRN
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 2:45pmI don‘t know whether to sing ’Venus‘ or ’Sunny’.
Report Post »flatbroke
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 2:35pmAs little as 50 years ago everyone saw the sky every night. They looked up and saw the stars and planets, and knew God was in control.
Report Post »flatbroke
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 2:30pmGods amazing universal precision clock, evidence is clear for intelligent design.
Report Post »Cesium
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 7:19pmand made just 6000 years ago!
Report Post »Dragonfire
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 11:05pmThis dispensation, yes. The Universe and Earth, no. They are millions of years old. The Earth was made void is the true translation of the manuscripts. He destroyed the first round with a flood and maybe a meteor. God’s creation so God can get peeved and choose the mode of destruction that suits the will God chooses. This is a test of whether we will accept God or not. No one is going to force you since forcing you makes you a robot. God wanted love and companionship and had to give freewill EVEN knowing that there would be a possibility for rebellion. You were created. You can’t be the creator so get over it. The creator loves us enough to give us everything like a loving Father but if his children rebel, what would YOU do? He came in the flesh to be with his creation. Anything else you want done to prove he loves you? God has a limit just as we do. His limit is that God can never not exist. He was, is and will be forever. As God stated, “Before there was, I am.” So there is no creator of God so we must stop there. Makes more sense than a singularity that just was there and suddenly went “BANG”. I like the “Let there be Light for the cause of the bang as a much better way to have his thoughts become reality. Then as a scroll, the Universe unrolled into what it is. If we are an expanding universe, why are the constellations the same as in thousands of years past? Hmmmm
Report Post »G-WHIZ
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 1:52pmSo, as our SUN has a “zzit”, we are all mezzmerised…”OOOOh lookkie-lookei!!” Meanwhile, The admin is spending us into complete ecconnomic armegeddon, every seccond of every day. How much of our soverenty is given away with “treaties with our enemies” without any retributions in them? The first one is in a few weeks…it demands 50%-of-all our energy-extracted(oil+gass) at 200miles+off our coastlines, to be given and spread-out among the other 160-countries of the NWO, who are poorer than the rich-USA(re-distribution!!). Read all about it..lookup U.S.A.-recent treaties up for vote. These WILL force us into the NewWorldOrder. WE are the only “holdout” to their utopia!
Report Post »SLOWBIDEN
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 2:19pmthis isn’t going to happen again in 105 years. It is news worthy and you’re an idiot
Report Post »Freebird
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 1:19pmThe heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
This certainly is true,this year especially,I don’t ever remember so many glorious celestial events in such a short period of time.
Report Post »pap pap
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 1:31pmMaybe that’s a sign.
Report Post »eyestoseeearstohear
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 3:30pm@ FREEBIRD AND PAP PAP
You BOTH are right!
” SIGNS (Pap Pap) AND WONDERS (FreeBird)
Isn’t it amazing how God works?
Report Post »Your combined comments reinterates that which is written.
Cesium
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 7:22pmsooo once we all thought god made us and we were at the center of the universe.. then science came and proved the god believers on wrong on that.. sooo why did god make Venus? it’s like 800 degrees…. technically if we are here for god there’s is no reason for the rest of the planets yet there they are..
Report Post »ChiefGeorge
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:49pm“I am the bright morning Star”
JC
Report Post »HorseCrazy
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 12:24pmI am a space junkie. I love to watch the sky, anyone insterested NASA has free daily emails where they send you a hubble picture daily. The wonder of God’s Creation is astounding! Breathtakingly beautiful. try the emails or photo galleries, they take you out of the work zone for a few minutes in the morning whilst working away the day.
Report Post »face.chewer
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 12:08pmWhat is this strange ball of fire that you speak of?
Report Post »artman54
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 11:45amWhat a wonderful world the Good Lord gave us
Report Post »Mutiny
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 11:21amI thought the path it took was odd. It looked wavey. Very cool stuff.
Report Post »SLOWBIDEN
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 11:41amcan you see ur pen us in uranus
Report Post »Truthbeliever2
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 2:39pmI notice the path it was taking as well. It looked as if it was moving in a wavy pattern instead of a straight line as it crossed the sun. Weird.
Report Post »EJ1979
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:14pmId have to guess it was wavy because the earth is on a tilt?
Report Post »Vickie Dhaene
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 11:12amHis creations are most spectacular. From the largest to the very smallest.
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 11:05amGod gave us a pretty good view of His creation, didn’t He?
Report Post »CatB
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 11:13amGod is cool .. but it was too cloudy in the sunshine state .. so watched online.
Report Post »oyster0302
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 11:20amDevine
Report Post »namron019
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 12:10pmAMEN, God is the only one I will apply the word Awesome to. Nothing makes me happier than that my God can overwhelm me and yet thanks the time to lead me every day. Praise the Lord.
Report Post »Cesium
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 7:30pmgood for him, he created an 800 degree imperfect sphere that serves no purpose… what an intelligent god…. Just don’t forget… 100s of years ago you god lovers would have certainly been hellbent in opposition to the scientists that destroyed geocentrisim.. just as you do right now with evolution having absolutely no knowledge about the molecular underpinnings of it, yet forming an opinion on it anyway..
Report Post »KevinVA
Posted on June 10, 2012 at 11:06amActually… no, Celsium. About 2200-2300 years ago, “we” would have been living under a corrupted theocratic regime, which had little tolerance for any difference in thought. Of course, you’re suggesting that we all would have been Greek, and we all would have thought Aristarchus was a heretic, and apparently, we’d all have been polytheistic, thinking there’s a Sun God, Moon God, Harvest God, Winter God, etc. In other words, you’re playing a stupid game.
You’re also suggesting that an “imperfect sphere” is imperfect. In whose eyes? Yours? Aristotle’s? Who, besides God, is to judge what is perfect and what is imperfect? Merely because you don’t see the use of an 800 degree imperfect sphere, merely makes you much less significant than you thought. You remain ignorant of the purpose, just as you remain ignorant of the purpose for dark matter, or the purpose for celestial objects that are billions of miles away from Earth. In fact… why show interest in cosmology at all, if anything that doesn’t serve a purpose, in your eyes, is what most of the cosmos is filled with?
Also, I wonder if you’ve actually studied Anthropology and evolution, at all… I hold a degree in this “science,” and I can tell you that there’s absolutely no undeniable evidence suggesting that we share a common ancestor with apes. You can point to any number of bones/teeth found from millions of years past, and I can make an argument against its’ comparison to ours.
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