NASA joined the world on June 8, 2004, in viewing a rare celestial event, one not seen by any person now alive. The "Venus transit" -- the apparent crossing of our planetary neighbor in front of the Sun -- was captured from the unique perspective of NASA's Sun-observing TRACE spacecraft. This video shows the transit in ultraviolet wavelengths.
The last "Venus transit" occurred more than a century ago, in 1882, and was used to compute the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Scientists with NASA's Kepler mission hope to discover Earth-like planets outside our solar system by searching for transits of other stars by planets that might be orbiting them.
NASA/LMSAL
2004-06-08
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