A Life-Time Phemenon

Venus passes across the Sun; this rare transit has been watched by numerous people throughout our country, and others. Bikaner too was not left untouched by the glory of Venus at this eventful journey. People of all ages showed tremendous energy and enthusiasm to capture this life-time event with their eyes. They gathered at various places with special arrangements by educational and science institutions to facilitate them for viewing Venus in her full glory. So many people gathered at their terrace; men, women, children, all excited, their thought process flooded with so many strange questions and imaginations about the happening incident. Let us explore few basic facts about this Passage of Venus, as it is referred.

Seeing these Transits of Venus, as they are properly called, have been of great importance in earlier times. Historically, global expeditions timed transits of Venus to quantify the size of Solar system. During the earlier transits, astronomers used the occasion to calculate the distance between the Sun and the Earth. The last time Venus traversed between the Sun and the Earth was 122 years back, on 6th of December, 1882. Therefore, before this 8th of June, there was nobody alive having witnessed this phenomenon. This passage of Venus is essentially an eclipse, even though Venus is too tiny to eclipse the sun. In recent years, it has been observed that this celestial date has occurred in couples, with eight year repeat cycle at a gap of around 100+ years. It happened in 1518 and 1526, then in 1631 and 1639, and then 105 years later in 1874 and 1882, and now 122 years later in 2004, another coming in 2012.

Besides the Sun and the Moon, Venus is the brightest object in the sky, and is the second planet from the Sun and Earth's nearest planetary neighbour. From Earth, it cannot be seen in the middle of the night, but can be tried and spotted near the horizon at sunrise or sunset. Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system with temperature at its surface being around 500 degrees and raining sulphuric acid there. For this planet, it takes 225 days to go around the Sun and 243 days to spin once on its axis. Comparatively Venus orbits the Sun just over three times it takes Earth to orbit twice, which implies that the lady planet passes between earth and the Sun roughly every nineteen months. But there occurs at the most two transits of Venus every century. This is so because Venus and Earth orbit the Sun at a slight angle to each other. When we watch from the Earth, Venus usually appears to pass above or below the Sun rather than crossing it.

This rare celestial extravaganza has certainly captured the imagination of millions. Venus passed directly between us and the Sun, allowing us to see it as a circular silhouette creeping across the face of the Sun. The spectacular phenomenon is expected to be coming soon eight years in line, in 2012. On one hand where astronomers have been excited to get a life-time chance to record the cyclical passes and catch our sister planet in its shadow dancing positions, few astrologers relate it to some divine signals or love revolution on Earth (Venus being considered the planet of love in astrology). Some claim that only the planets Jupiter and Saturn hold prime importance in our mythology. Whatever its significance in astrology would have been, for the masses certainly it was a celestial magic at which they have been lucky enough to watch and experience. What impact it has straightaway laid is that though astronomy not usually is a subject of interest for everybody, such rare events bring inside them an urge to know more about our solar neighbours and their mutual protocols. That way, it can be called a fateful celestial date.