Today our Sister Planet Venus will transit across the face of our Sun Sol! Here in good old Houston, Texas it's supposed to happen toward sunset. As with any eclipse of the Sun, you should never look directly at the sun lest you fry your retinas, although Venus will not be blocking off very much of the sun's surface, unlike our own Moon Luna, so the Sun's normal brightness should keep you from looking at it too long! I've never actually tried fashioning one of those pinhole contraptions to shine an image of the Sun onto a piece of white paper to view it. Undoubtedly the safest way to view this historical Transit of Venus would be to watch it on TV or on the web, such as on the wonderful Astronomy Picture of the Day website!
Apparently transits of Venus are rather rare occurrences, although the most recent one happened in 2004, which was only 8 years ago! The next one is supposed to happen sometime in 2117 when very few of those of us who are presently alive will be alive, presumably, barring some miraculous breakthroughs in gerontology! I'm still somewhat astounded that we know how to calculate such things in advance, or at least that someone knows how to do that! I'm pretty sure good old Newtonian classical mechanics suffices to do such calculations and computers are quite capable of doing most all of the heavy mathematical and physical lifting involved. Still, pretty amazing! Astronomical, in fact!
Speaking of Venus, by the way, one can readily point to Venus as a nearby example of what can happen to a planet like ours (Venus is just a little smaller than our own planet Earth) when you put a little too much carbon dioxide greenhouse gas in your atmosphere! Granted, Venus is closer to the Sun than Earth is, but nevertheless the Greenhouse Effect has run rampant on Venus, creating a truly hellishly hot global environment there with surface temperatures averaging around 900 degrees Fahrenheit or so, which is about 500 degrees Celsius (give or take 32 degrees Fahrenheit or so), which is even hotter than Houston, Texas in August!
Sic transit gloria Venus! Enjoy!
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