Millions of people around the world have witnessed the planet Venus passing directly between Earth and the sun. Such astronomical events are known as transits, Venus transits are very rare, only occurring in pairs every hundred years. The last Venus transit was in 2004 and the next one won’t be until 2117.

Stargazers located in the Arctic Circle or Eastern Asia were lucky enough to witness the entire transit, while in other locations only part of the transit was visible. The entire event lasted just under 7 hours with the planet Venus silhouetted against the bright sun.

The reason Venus transits are so rare is down to two factors. Firstly Venus orbits the sun quicker than Earth with the planets aligning every 1.6 years. Secondly Venus’s orbit is tilted in comparison with Earth’s meaning that they can only ever be in direct alignment with the sun at two points. These two points are separated by an eight year gap then do not happen again for another hundred years.

The first scientist to predict a Venus transit was the 17th century astronomer Johannes Kepler, aptly Nasa’s mission to detect planets outside our solar is named after him. The Kepler Mission uses a space based telescope to detect such transits around distant stars.

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