Hawaii gets best view of rare transit of Venus

By Mike Shanahan
Bishop Museum

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, May 27, 2012

~~<p>The Transit of Venus, one of the rarest of predictable astronomical events, occurs from 12:09 to 6:42 p.m. on June 5. It will take more than six hours for the black disc of the planet Venus to cross the blazing surface of the sun. Transits of Venus occur in pairs, eight years apart; the last transit of Venus was in June 2004. Between those pairs, however, you must wait for more than a century. After the June 5 transit, the next one will not occur until 2117. Hawaii missed the last Venus transit in 2004, since it occurred after sunset in the islands when neither the sun nor Venus was visible. In fact, the last transit visible in Hawaii occurred in 1874.</p>
<p>However, we are the best location in the 50 states to see the June 5 transit. We are in fact the only state to see the event from start to finish; on the mainland, the transit will still be in progress as the sun sets.</p>
~~

The Transit of Venus, one of the rarest of predictable astronomical events, occurs from 12:09 to 6:42 p.m. on June 5. It will take more than six hours for the black disc of the planet Venus to cross the blazing surface of the sun. Transits of Venus occur in pairs, eight years apart; the last transit of Venus was in June 2004. Between those pairs, however, you must wait for more than a century. After the June 5 transit, the next one will not occur until 2117. Hawaii missed the last Venus transit in 2004, since it occurred after sunset in the islands when neither the sun nor Venus was visible. In fact, the last transit visible in Hawaii occurred in 1874.

However, we are the best location in the 50 states to see the June 5 transit. We are in fact the only state to see the event from start to finish; on the mainland, the transit will still be in progress as the sun sets. Login for more...