Venus is moving in! The LASCO C3 coronograph on board the SOHO spacecraft has been watching the approach of Venus for its last solar transit until 2117. With coronagraphs, the Sun is blocked by an occulting disk, seen here in blue, so that SOHO can observe the much fainter features in the Sun’s corona. The actual size of the Sun is represented by the white disk.
The transit of Venus will be tomorrow, June 5, starting at about 6pm Eastern Daylight Time, or about 10pm UTC. Universe Today will be coordinating 8 hours of rockin’ live coverage, starting at 20:00 UTC (2:00 p.m. PDT, 5 pm EDT) on Tuesday. During the webcast, go to the coordinating page on Universe Today, UniverseToday.com/transit, or you can also view it on the Virtual Star party Google+ page, or on Universe Today’s YouTube live feed.