Chennai ready for Venus transit on June 6

The Breakthrough Society, which has been working towards popularising science, conducted an awareness programme at Marina Beach in Chennai on Sunday on the rare occurrence of the transit of Venus, scheduled to take place on June 6. Members of the society distributed solar filters and carried out an awareness campaign on viewing the transit of Venus on June 6. The society has also set up telescopes to let people view the craters on the moon and planets like Saturn and Mars. Citing the importance of this particular astronomical event as being the first international collaborative expedition, George Joseph, convener of the Breakthrough Science Society, said, “The timing of its entry and exit [out of the disk of the Sun] can help determine the distance between the Sun and the earth. It accounts as one astronomical unit.” Transit of Venus occurs when the planet Venus passes directly between the sun and earth. Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black disk moving across the face of the sun during a transit. Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena. They occur in a pattern that repeats every 243 years. The last transit of Venus was in 2004. Therefore, June 6, 2012, would be the last opportunity for the current generation to witness the rare astronomical event as the next transit is expected to take place in 2117. However, most of South America and the Western section of Africa would not be able to view the astronomical event. India would be able to see two-thirds of the transit of Venus.