Mercury and Venus Transit Dates
Since purchasing a Solar filter and mask, together with a lot of information about Mercury being recently published, I wanted to know when the next transits of the Sun occur, so I can view them. Well it turns out the first one is not until 2012.
As seen from Earth, only transits of the inner planets Mercury and Venus are possible. Planetary transits are far more rare than eclipses of the Sun by the Moon. On the average, there are 13 transits of Mercury each century.
So for reference here are the dates for the next transits of Mercury and Venus:
Transits of Mercury Dates
| Date | Universal Time | Separation* (Sun and Mercury) |
|
2016 May 09 |
14:57 |
319″ |
|
2019 Nov 11 |
15:20 |
76″ |
|
2032 Nov 13 |
08:54 |
572″ |
|
2039 Nov 07 |
08:46 |
822″ |
|
2049 May 07 |
14:24 |
512″ |
* distance (arc-seconds) between the centers of the Sun and Mercury
Transits of Venus Dates
| Date | Universal Time | Separation* (Sun and Venus) |
|
2012 Jun 06 |
01:28 |
553″ |
|
2117 Dec 11 |
02:48 |
724″ |
|
2125 Dec 08 |
16:01 |
733″ |
|
2247 Jun 11 |
11:30 |
693″ |