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Venus was 0.7205 au from the Sun on the day of transit, decidedly less than average. [9] Moving far backwards in time, more than 200,000 years ago Venus sometimes passed by at a distance from Earth of barely less than 38 million km, and will next do that after more than 400,000 years.
Careful observations of the 1769 transit of Venus allowed astronomers to calculate the average Earth–Sun distance as 93,726,900 miles (150,838,800 km), only 0.8% greater than the modern value. [291] Uranus, having occasionally been observed since 1690 and possibly from antiquity, was recognized to be a planet orbiting beyond Saturn by 1783. [292]
Consequently, Venus transits only occur when an inferior conjunction takes place during some days of June or December, when the orbits of Venus and Earth cross a straight line with the Sun. [189] This results in Venus transiting above Earth in a sequence currently of 8 years, 105.5 years, 8 years and 121.5 years, forming cycles of 243 years.
The timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their natural satellites charts the progress of the discovery of new bodies over history. Each object is listed in chronological order of its discovery (multiple dates occur when the moments of imaging, observation, and publication differ), identified through its various designations (including temporary and permanent schemes), and the ...
Approximate sizes of the planets relative to each other. Outward from the Sun, the planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Jupiter's diameter is about 11 times that of the Earth's and the Sun's diameter is about 10 times Jupiter's. The planets are not shown at the appropriate distance from the Sun.
At their closest point, Jupiter and Venus will be just half a degree apart – about the diameter of a full moon – despite being more than 600 million km (400 million miles) away from each other ...
1979 – Voyager 1 flies by Jupiter and discovers its faint ring system, as well as volcanoes on Io, the innermost of its Galilean moons. [201] 1979 – Voyager 2 flies by Jupiter and discovers evidence of an ocean under the surface of its moon Europa. [202] 1980 – Voyager 1 flies by Saturn and takes the first images of Titan. [203]
Around Dec. 14, Jupiter will be visible in the night sky between the nearly full moon and a reddish-orange star called Aldebaran, which shines brightest in the Taurus constellation and can be seen ...