It was only last May that we were all able to catch a glimpse of the solar eclipse, and coming next week planet Earth will have more cosmic events for us to look forward to, firstly with the lunar eclipse on Monday and then with the transit of Venus between 5-6 June.
OK, let’s get the lunar eclipse out of the way first. A partial lunar eclipse is set for Monday, 4 June. The June full moon will be dipping through the Earth’s shadow early on Monday to produce the first lunar eclipse of the year.
The full moon is set to pass behind Earth at 3am Pacific Daylight Time, before Monday’s sunrise.
So who will be able to witness it? NASA said the eclipse will be visible in North and South America, Australia, eastern parts of Asia and all across the Pacific Ocean.
And, now, moving onto the transit of Venus spectacle that’s coming our way between 5-6 June. Planet Venus will be passing across the face of the sun, producing a silhouette of the distant planet as it traverses the sun as a tiny dot.
The reason why the transit of Venus is being viewed as such an astronomical event is there won’t be another one until 2117!
So who will be able to experience the transit? The good news is that observers on seven continents, even on a part of Antarctica, will be able to witness the event, according to NASA.
Observers in North America will be able to see the transit on the evening of 5 June, whereas observers in most of Eurasia will be able to witness the transit in the morning on 6 June.
Here in Ireland, DIT, the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and Astronomy Ireland, are holding a meet-up for the public at the Martello Tower in Skerries in north Co Dublin to watch the transit of Venus as the sun rises on the morning of 6 June.
Be sure not to stare into the sun!
We all know well the dangers of staring directly into the sun so be careful out there!
Phone app makers have come up with their own ingenious solutions. Astronomers Without Borders has teamed up with Transitsofvenus.org to create both web and smartphone apps for the occasion.
Via the Venus Transit phone app, people observing the Venus transit will be able to send their observations to a global experiment to measure the size of the solar system.
