Day 125. Two Venus transits

On the second day of Christmas, ScienceforLife gave to me:

• Two Venus transits*; and
• Planets that resemble a tree.

*On June 6 2012 I was lucky enough to view the planet Venus as it passed across the face of the Sun. This was the second such transit in my lifetime, as explained by Nick Lomb in his beautiful book Transit of Venus – 1631 to the present:

“Every so often, the planet Venus does something remarkable. Its orbit brings it to a point directly between the Sun and the Earth, where it appears to us as a black dot moving across the bright disc of the Sun. This transit of Venus is rare, occurring in pairs eight years apart and then not for more than a hundred years; it has fascinated astronomers for centuries”.

The next pair of transits of Venus will be on 11 December 2117 and 8 December 2125.