07 June 2012 07:03 AM | By MSN News
2012 Transit of Venus: In Pictures

Skywatchers around the world enjoy the incredibly rare celestial event

An image from Nasa showing the planet Venus transiting across the sun (© REUTERS/Nasa/AIA/Solar Dynamics Observatory/Handout)
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  • An image from Nasa showing the planet Venus transiting across the sun (© REUTERS/Nasa/AIA/Solar Dynamics Observatory/Handout)
  • A helicopter is seeing flying across the face of the sun at the same time as the planet Venus (© REUTERS/Jorge Duenes)
  • The planet Venus makes its transit across a setting sun over the Pacific Ocean in Encinitas, California (© REUTERS/Mike Blake)
  • A plane is seeing flying past the planet Venus as it makes its transit across the sun over Vienna (© REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader)
  • Schoolchildren look at the planet Venus moving across the sun at Sydney's Observatory (© REUTERS/Daniel Munoz)
  • An image from Nasa showing the planet Venus transiting across the sun (© REUTERS/Nasa/AIA/Solar Dynamics Observatory/Handout)
  • A person watches Venus moving across the sun over the Great Salt Lake outside Salt Lake City in Utah (© REUTERS/Jim Urquhart)
  • A view of the planet Venus moving across the sun as seen from New Delhi in India (© REUTERS/Adnan Abidi)
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The planet Venus passed across the face of the sun, as viewed from Earth, over the night of June 5 and the morning of 6. The incredibly rare astronomical event, called the Transit of Venus, has only happened twice in over a hundred years - and the next one will not be visible for another 105 years, in the year 2117.

It was watched across much of the world, and lasted more than six and a half hours. In this picture, released by Nasa, Venus can be seen as a small black dot towards towards the top of the sun.

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