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Showing posts with the label Transit Venus Sun Tuesday June 5 2012 Sonora California NASA Pinhole Camera Guardian Stanley Kubrick 2001 SpaceX Dragon dock International Space Station Fraser Cain Universe Today

The Transit of Venus - Go Space!

Transit of Venus, June 5 2012. Photograph courtesy of NASA. We watched it from outside our house with a simple pinhole camera that Charong made - but NASA somehow got the better image! The transit of Venus (Venus passing in front of the sun) occurred on Tuesday, June 5, 2012, at about 3pm local time for us in Sonora, California - and while it was hard to see (without blinding yourself!), it was a remarkable event. Please read this fascinating Guardian article about the transit , which includes this great quote from Fraser Cain, founder of the space website Universe Today : "Only six [transits] have occurred since the invention of the telescope," Cain said. "It's because of the transit of Venus that we even know how big the solar system is. It's one of the most fundamental observations that have ever been made in the history of  astronomy ." It's true that, when I stepped outside our house on Tuesday, I was hoping for something as remarkabl