Transits of Venus and Mercury

2004 Transit of Venus

Transit of Venus, courtesy of Williams College Expedition

Transit of Venus, courtesy of Williams College Expedition

2012 Transit of Venus

Map2012-2

2006 Transit of Mercury

06_TRANSIT_INGRESS (1)

Transit of Mercury, courtesy of Williams College Expedition

Historical Transits of Venus

Doppelmayr, 1742

Doppelmayr, 1742

Transit of Venus from Jupiter on September 20, 2012

Jupiter.color.1

2016 Transit of Mercury

BBSO-colorized-grab

For the 2016 Transit of Mercury page, please see: http://sites.williams.edu/pasachoff/2016tom/

For the 2019 Transit of Mercury page, please see:

2019 Transit of Mercury

See Jay M. Pasachoff, Bernd Gährken, and Glenn Schneider, “Using the 2016 Transit of Mercury to Find the Distance to the Sun,” The Physics Teacher, March 2016, vol. 55, pp. 138-141 (the cover story); for a more detailed calculation of the distance to the Sun by Professor Udo Backhaus, see the link.