Quick search Find article
Quick search
Find article

The transit of Venus, 8 June 2004: a teachers' guide to finding the Earth–Sun distance

Robin Catchpole

Show affiliations


Transits of Venus have been observed since the 17th century and were soon recognized as a way of determining the distance from the Earth to the Sun. But just how can this be done? There are in fact four methods and this article examines them in turn, making clear how Venus will appear to move, what observations are required, the calculations that follow and the relative merits of each method.


PACS

96.30.Ea Venus

95.10.Gi Eclipses, transits, and occultations

Subjects

Astrophysics and astroparticles

Dates

Issue 3 (May 2004)

Received 23 January 2004, in final form 4 March 2004



Related review articles

What's this?
View review articles related to this research to gain an insight into the key trends in this subject area. Related review articles are selected based on PACS/MSC codes, and are no more than three years old.

  1. The icy Jovian satellites after the Galileo mission

View by subject




Export






Please login to access our web services, or create an account if you don't yet have one.

You must have cookies enabled in your web browser to be able to login.

Username
Password

Forgotten your password? Get a new one here.