Transit of Venus • Free Public Event
When: June 5, 2012, 5 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Where: Houchens Industries L.T. Smith Stadium
Why: Venus will pass directly between the Earth and the Sun! Don't miss this once-in-a-lifetime event! Watch the Transit webcast live from Hawaii on the stadium's scoreboard.
Venus regularly passes between the Earth and the Sun, but most times it passes slightly above or below the Sun as seen from the Earth. Starting at 5:04 p.m. on June 5, 2012, the planet Venus will appear as a tiny black dot slowly moving directly across the face of the Sun. This is called Transit of Venus. It will not happen again until 2117. The Transit of Venus takes about six hours to complete in full, but from Bowling Green the Sun will set about halfway through.
Activities available free of charge:
- Learn many ways to observe the Sun safely
- Experiment with special beads that react to ultraviolet light
- Build your own sundial
- Play with shadows and see how they change as the Sun moves through the sky
- Learn about the Transit of Venus and why it is so rare
- Discover how expeditions in the 1700's and 1800's overcame changes to view the Transit of Venus, allowing us to determine the size of our Solar System
- Be a part of our model scale solar system
- Investigate the properties of telescopes and how they help us observe the heavens
For more information:
Contact Dr. Richard Gelderman, WKU Physics and Astronomy at richard.gelderman@wku.edu or call (270) 745-6203.
There are many simple ways to observe the Sun safely. Check out this guide from a NASA website, so you can join in the fun!
Yes, there's an app for this!
This short video from transitofvenus.org takes you through a short history of the Transit of Venus and it's importance today to the search for planets orbiting other stars.
