From the Globe and Mail, Toronto
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040515/VENUS15//?query=venus
Venus ascending
'For
most people, it'll be about as exciting as watching paint dry,' but astronomers
are in a tizzy over the chance to see the planet pass between the sun and us
next month. DAN FALK explains the transit fever
By DAN FALK
Saturday,
May. 15, 2004
Why would
anyone travel thousands of kilometres to see a small black dot move slowly
across a big yellow circle?
For
amateur astronomers around the world, the question is just the opposite: How
could anyone think of missing a phenomenon so exotic that no living person has
seen it? You might as well ask a birdwatcher why he would bother tracking down
the black paradise flycatcher or a stamp collector why he would want a specimen
with an upside-down airplane on it.
"It's
one of these rare things," says Ralph Chou, a professor of optometry at
the University of Waterloo and an avid amateur astronomer.
Driven by
"sheer curiosity," Prof. Chou will go to Egypt next month for the
chance to see the black dot travel across the yellow circle, an event otherwise
known as a transit of Venus. At that spot, a combination of geography and
climate should guarantee him a front-row view.
A transit
of Venus occurs when the planet passes directly between the Earth and the sun.
Such transits occur in pairs eight years apart -- but the pairs are separated
by either 105 or 122 years.
In other
words, if you are born at the wrong time, you won't see it, period. Transits of
Venus are so infrequent that they have been recorded as being seen by human
beings on only five previous occasions, beginning in 1639; the last one was in
1882.
But the
dry spell is nearly over: The next transit of Venus will take place on June 8.
"There's
nobody alive on the face of this Earth that saw the last transit of
Venus," Prof. Chou says. "And we are just fortunate to be alive at a
time when we're going to have the possibility of seeing two transits - the one
in June of this year and another one in 2012."
A transit
is not as spectacular as an eclipse; indeed, without a telescope and the proper
filter needed to observe it safely, you would never know it was happening.
"For most people, it'll be about as exciting as watching paint dry,"
Prof. Chou says.
But the
rarity itself is enough to give sky watchers a case of transit fever.
Some
enthusiasts will be flying to exotic locations; in Egypt, Prof. Chou will be
leading a tour on behalf of the Toronto Centre of the Royal Astronomical
Society of Canada, a nationwide association of astronomy clubs.
Others
will stick closer to home. "I'm going to try to observe it locally, here
in the city -- if the weather is suitable," says Geoff Gaherty, a
Toronto-based computer consultant. "But I'm prepared to drive at least a
few hours if it looks more promising somewhere else."
Observers
in Central and Eastern Canada can indeed see the transit -- but only a portion
of it: It will already be under way as the sun rises. Viewers in Europe,
eastern Africa and western Asia will be able to see the entire event, which
lasts just over six hours.
The first
transit of Venus known to have been seen by human eyes occurred in 1639, and
only two people glimpsed it: a young Englishman named Jeremiah Horrocks and his
friend, William Crabtree.
By the
time of the next transit, in 1761, the situation was quite different. Transits
could be predicted with great accuracy, and astronomers knew that data from a
transit could be used to calculate the distance to the sun (and, from that, the
distance to the planets).
It boils
down to a problem of triangulation. As seen from different locations on the
Earth's surface, Venus takes a slightly different path across the face of the
sun. If you compare the path as seen from location A with the path recorded at
location B, and you know the distance separating A and B, along with the
duration of the transit as seen from the two locations, then -- with a bit of
geometry -- you can work out both the distance to Venus and the distance to the
sun.
Thus,
accurate transit observations became a top scientific priority, and about 70
expeditions were mounted to locations around the world to record the 1761
event.
The first
person to see a transit of Venus from North America, and the only one to view
the 1761 transit from this continent, happened to be standing on what is now
Canadian soil -- a hill in St. John's. The observer was John Winthrop, a
professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Harvard College (now Harvard
University). The transit was not visible from Massachusetts, so he persuaded
Harvard and the governor of the colony to support his expedition -- and he set
sail for Newfoundland.
The trip
was a great success. "The morning of the 6th of June was serene and
calm," he wrote in his log. "And at 4h 18m we had the high
satisfaction of seeing that most agreeable Sight, VENUS ON THE SUN, and of
shewing it in our telescopes to the Gentlemen of the place, who had assembled
very early on the hill to behold so curious a spectacle."
This
year's transit will again be visible to early risers in St. John's, where keen
amateur astronomers are hoping to experience the same thrill that captivated
Prof. Winthrop nearly 21⁄2 centuries ago. The transit is of
"enormous historic interest," says Fred Smith, a professor in the
faculty of science at Memorial University of Newfoundland. "It does allow
us to recreate a little bit of history."
In fact,
Prof. Smith believes that he has figured out precisely where Prof. Winthrop was
stationed. Based on the Harvard professor's log, which gives the latitude of
the observing site but not the longitude, he believes that Prof. Winthrop
observed the transit from Kenmount Hill on the west side of the city.
The
transit eight years later, in 1769, motivated one of the more famous of all sea
voyages: the expedition of James Cook to the South Pacific. But there were also
four observing stations in Canada that year, including a remarkable expedition
by two English astronomers, William Wales and John Dymond, to Fort Prince of
Wales on Hudson Bay, the site of present-day Churchill, Man.
Dr. Wales
and Dr. Diamond spent 13 months at the fort, observing the local flora, fauna
and geology, complaining of mosquitoes, and were paid £200 by the Royal Society
of London for their efforts.
Astronomers
would eventually combine the data from the 1761 and 1769 transits and work out
the Earth-sun distance to within a few per cent of the modern value of 149.6
million kilometres.
The next
transit, in 1874, was visible from Asia, and European and American teams
observed the event from Russia, Japan, China and Mauritius. Despite the advent
of photography, the results were disappointing; a number of factors, including
hazy weather and turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere, hampered the
observations.
More
important, astronomers were now developing other methods for determining the
Earth-sun distance. One method involved tracking the position of Mars against
the background stars and turned out to be more accurate (and easier to do) than
the transit method. (Today, astronomers have more sophisticated ways of
determining distances in the solar system, including radar, and the average
distance separating the Earth and sun is now known to within a few dozen
metres.)
By the
time the next transit rolled around, on Dec. 6, 1882, the event was no longer
of great scientific importance -- though members of the public were certainly
excited about it. Newspapers of the day record a high level of interest,
although bad weather hampered the viewing in many locations. "Cold and
miserable, the amateur astronomers stuck to the roof of The Mail until the
transit was over," the Toronto newspaper reported; observers in Halifax
experienced "very dark and rainy" conditions and "made no
observations," a local paper said.
Still,
the 1882 event triggered a surge of interest in astronomy and science. The
Royal Society of Canada was founded the same year, historians note. "The
prospect of the transit, and the hope that even Canadians could make some useful
observations, was, I think, the beginning of professional astronomy in
Canada," says Peter Broughton, a retired Toronto teacher who has written
extensively on the history of Canadian astronomy.
These
days, of course, Venus is hardly a stranger. We now recognize it as our sister
planet, with a diameter just a bit smaller than Earth's and a mass four-fifths
of Earth's. We know it has a thick (albeit poisonous) atmosphere, and no moons.
By now, 26 space missions, including eight landers, have explored the
cloud-covered world.
The June
8 transit will tell astronomers little that is new about either Venus or the
sun -- although there is still scientific interest in the "black
drop" effect, a complex phenomenon in which the disc of Venus appears
stretched out into the shape of a raindrop as it first passes in front of the
sun and later as it appears to exit the solar disc.
Jay
Pasachoff, an astronomer at Williams College in Massachusetts, will observe the
transit from northern Greece, together with a group of students, in order to
study the black drop effect in more detail.
But he
admits that transits are now primarily of educational and historical value.
This spring's event "is a great time for public education, and making
people appreciate the value of science in general and astronomy in
particular," Prof. Pasachoff says.
On June
8, people will again look up at that black dot inching across the sun, and
ponder the nature of these distant spheres -- at once unfathomably remote and
yet strangely familiar. Many will muse on the rarity of the event, just as
astronomer William Harkness of the U.S. Naval Observatory did the last time
around.
"What
will be the state of science when the next transit season arrives God only
knows," he told an audience in 1882. He could hardly imagine that far-off
day when "the 21st century of our era has dawned upon the Earth, and the
June flowers are blooming in 2004."
Dan Falk is a Toronto science writer,
broadcaster and amateur astronomer. He plans to view the June 8 transit from
somewhere in southern Europe.
Our sister planet
Venus is
named for the Roman goddess of love and beauty. It is known as the morning star
as well as the evening star, depending on its position in the sky.
Orbit: 108,200,000 kilometres from the sun, about two-thirds the size of
Earth's orbit.
Diameter: 12,100 kilometres, about 95 per cent size of Earth.
Mass: 4.87 x 10{+2}{+4} kilograms, about 80 per cent of the mass of
Earth.
Rotation: in an opposite direction to that of Earth.
Length of year: 225 Earth days (but its day is 243 Earth days
because it rotates so slowly).
Surface: craters and volcanoes.
Atmosphere: mainly carbon dioxide, with some nitrogen and virtually no water
vapour; several layers of clouds many kilometres thick composed of sulphuric
acid.
Atmospheric pressure: At the surface, 92 times that of the Earth's at
sea level.
Surface temperature: about 475 degrees Celsius.
Times to watch
For all
locations except the High Arctic, the transit will already be under way as the
sun rises on June 8. Canada's Far West is outside the zone of visibility. To
view the sun safely, you can use No. 14 welder's glass. All times are local.
Location Sunrise Transit ends
Iqaluit
2:22 a.m. 7:23 a.m.
St.
John's 5:04 a.m. 8:55 a.m.
Halifax
5:30 a.m. 8:26 a.m.
Quebec
4:51 a.m. 7:25 a.m.
Montreal
5:06 a.m. 7:25 a.m.
Toronto
5:35 a.m. 7:25 a.m.
Winnipeg
5:19 a.m. 6:24 a.m.
Regina
4:43 a.m. 5:23 a.m.
For more
locations, see the website: http://www.planetarium.montreal.qc.ca/Information/Actualite
Venus2004/tableau_a.html
Source: Montreal Planetarium