Periodically the planet Venus passes directly between Earth and the Sun, appearing as a small black dot on the Sun's disk. Since astronomers first became aware of them in 1631, these "transits of Venus" have fascinated...

Authored and curated by David P. Stern, this series of three web pages gives information about the usage of the transit of Venus to measure distances in the solar system. The site also contains a large collection of...

NASA's Magellan spacecraft used a sophisticated imaging radar to make the most highly detailed maps of Venus ever captured during its four years in orbit around Earth's sister planet from 1990 to 1994. After concluding...

The Transit of Venus is similar to a solar eclipse, where -- from the perspective on Earth -- Venus passes in front of the Sun. This event does not happen very often. In fact, no one alive had witnessed this phenomenon...