Venus Transits Come in Pairs, Then Vanish for More Than a Century
A transit of Venus happens when the planet passes between Earth and the Sun, appearing as a small black dot against the solar disk. These events are among astronomy’s rarest spectacles: they come in pairs eight years apart, then disappear for more than a century.
The last one was in 2012, when Venus crossed the face of the Sun and the event was livestreamed around the world. Scientists and enthusiasts watched something they would never see again in their lifetimes, from terraces with eclipse glasses or on laptops at home.
A quarter of a millennium ago, scientists did not have that luxury; astronomers risked everything to see the small shadow in the name of science.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
The comfort is the reversal: an event that once had astronomers risking everything became something you could watch from a laptop.
I’d resist making the risk the heart of it. The stranger fact is the schedule: two chances eight years apart, then more than a century of nothing.