Exploratorium Live Webcast:
The Transit of Venus!
Tuesday, June 8, 2004

No one alive has viewed this rarest of all eclipses: the Transit of Venus. The Transit is when Venus moves directly between the Earth and the Sun. Only six such events have occurred since the invention of the telescope; the most recent in 1882. The Live @ Exploratorium crew will travel to the National Observatory of Greece, outside Athens, for a clear view of this amazing and rare occurrence.

Museums and community groups around the country and the world will watch as we explore the role of past transits in the history of astronomy and how the Venus Transit was used to calculate the distance from the Earth to the Sun—called the Astronomical Unit. The program will present cutting-edge research on Sun-Venus and Sun-Earth interactions, and how NASA plans to use similar transits to discover planets circling stars in distant solar systems. Webcasts will begin with the point of first contact. As the transit unfolds over the hours, we will revisit the phenomenon through a series of shorter Webcasts, to capture the succession of Venus across the face of the Sun.

Responsible NASA Official: Dr. James Thiemann Web Manager/Curator: Troy Cline Web Designer/Curator: Lori Ann Persichitti Lopez Additional Credits NASA Privacy, Security, Notices