Historic Venus transit across face of the Sun tomorrow

Azaraimy HH

The expected time for the transit of Venus in Brunei from its first contact until the exit. - PHOTOS COURTESY OF SURVEY DEPARTMENT

Stargazers with the proper equipment can witness planet Venus transit across the Sun as early as 6.13am tomorrow.

The Brunei Astronomy Association told the Borneo Bulletin that the first contact (in Brunei), where Venus will seem to first touch the Sun's disc, is estimated to start around 6.13am. Meanwhile, the maximum contact, where the whole of Venus will be inside the Sun's disc, will happen at around 9.31am and it will look to be leaving the disc at around 12.45pm.

This is a rare occurrence, where Venus makes a rare transit across the Sun, travelling directly between the Sun and the Earth.

Transit of Venus is among the rarest of predic-table astronomical phenomena. They occur in a pattern that repeats only every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart, separated by a long gap of 121.5 years and 105.5 years.

According to the Survey Department, the last time such a phenomena was witnessed in Brunei was in 2004, and it is predicted to recur in more than a hundred years from now, on December 2117. Therefore, this transit that we see tomorrow would make it the last of such occurrences that we will witness during our lifetime.

As a precaution, the Survey Department urged the public to use a special sun filter while looking through telescopes or optical binoculars for observation as it could cause blindness, and not to look directly at the Sun with the naked eye, as it can permanently damage the retina and lead to loss of vision.

Venus transits are of great scientific importance historically as they were used to gain the first realistic estimate of the size of the Solar System.

Observations of the 1639 transit, combined with the principle of parallax, provided an estimate of the distance between the Sun and the Earth that was more accurate than any other up to that time. In addition, the June 2012 transit will provide scientists with a number of other research opportunities, particularly the refinement of techniques to be used in the search for exoplanets.

According to the Brunei Astronomy Association, a scientific mission to document the occurrence will be made from outer space for the first time.

- Borneo Bulletin. Tuesday, June 5th, 2012.