A171467 Years in which a transit of Venus (as seen from Earth) took place or is expected to occur, according to the catalog by Fred Espenak.

-1998, -1892, -1884, -1763, -1755, -1649, -1641, -1520, -1512, -1406, -1398, -1277, -1269, -1163, -1155, -1034, -1026, -920, -912, -791, -783, -669, -548, -540, -426, -305, -183, -62, 60, 181, 303, 424, 546, 554, 667, 789, 797, 910, 1032, 1040, 1153, 1275, 1283, 1396, 1518, 1526, 1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882, 2004, 2012, 2117, 2125, 2247, 2255, 2360, 2368, 2490, 2498, 2603, 2611, 2733, 2741, 2846, 2854, 2976, 2984, 3089, 3219, 3227, 3332, 3462, 3470, 3575, 3705, 3713, 3818, 3956

Offset: 1

Author

Paul Muljadi, Dec 09 2009

Keywords

• sign

Comments

Negative numbers refer to years B.C. or BCE. (NOTE: There was no year 0.)

A transit is a kind of eclipse, in which a planet is seen to "transit" across the sun. The transiting planet appears as a small black dot slowly making its way across the sun's area.

Transits are predictable events, and generally transits of Venus are separated by either 8 years, or 105.5 or 121.5 years; this generally means there are two Venus transits per century. However, the correspondence of eight Earth years to thirteen Venus years is not exact, and thus in the 13th Century, there was no transit in 1388. The months and days in which a Venus transit occurs has been gradually shifting through the millennia. Barring any significant changes to the orbits of the planets in the solar system, the predicted transits should occur as expected.

Links

• Fred Espenak, Transits of Venus: Six Millennium Catalog: 2000 BCE to 4000 CE. Provides detailed time and place data as well as some explanations specific to Venus transits.
• Amy Simon-Miller, Planetary Transits Across the Sun. Provides a general explanation of the concept of planetary transits and links to many more resources on the topic.
• NASA, Eclipse Web Site Transits of Venus are only possible during early December and early June when Venus's orbital nodes pass across the Sun. (...) Transits show a clear pattern of recurrence at intervals of 8, 121.5, 8 and 105.5 years.

Crossrefs

For years of Mercury transits, see A171466. Mercury transits occur more frequently than Venus transits.

Extensions

With data from NASA, terms verified by Alonso del Arte Dec 10 2009