Today is June 5, 2012 (for me, for others it will be June 6). This is the day that Venus passes in front of the Sun in a rare alignment resulting in a transit. This is similar to an eclipse, though Venus will only block ~1/30th of the Sun's disk. Unlike an eclipse, a transit of Venus is an extremely rare event. The next one will be more than a century from now: December 2117.
I had previously written about the transit (here) and detailed some of the math (here) involved in estimating the distance to the Sun. My prior post details one of the outreach activities I created as part of the event.
Today, this post is short and intended only to say one thing: WATCH IT!
This is a scheduled post so hopefully it goes out on time (regardless, the transit lasts for 6 hours).
If it's cloudy or you otherwise can't see the event, here's a short list of websites that will provide live webcasts so you can watch this unique event online (unfortunately, Team Hetu'u will not have a live web feed):
If one link doesn't work, try another! For a larger list, see the Bad Astronomy post here.
Clear skies!
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