| Join Enchanted Learning Site subscriptions last 12 months. Click here for more information on site membership. |
|||
|
$20.00/year or other amount (directly by Credit Card) |
$20.00/year or other amount (via PayPal) |
$20.00/year or other amount (for sending a check by mail) |
$20.00/year or other amount (for subscribing by school purchase order) |
| As a thank-you bonus, site members have access to a banner-ad-free version of the site, with print-friendly pages. | |||
Cloze Activity Fill in the blanks below. |
Answers |
| Sun dark Venus rarer Mercury |
eclipse transit between hours orbit |
3.39 years Earth larger ecliptic |
A transit is when a smaller body passes in front of a _______________________________ one (for example, when an object like Venus passes between the _______________________________ and the Sun). During a transit, the object (Venus in this case) appears as a small, dark object crossing the larger object. A transit is just like a special type of solar _______________________________, but the Sun does not go _______________________________; only a tiny bit of the Sun is obscured.
The only planets that ever pass between the Earth and the Sun are _______________________________ and Venus (since they are the only planets closer to the Sun than the Earth is). Therefore, the only planets that can produce a transit are Mercury and Venus. Since Venus' orbit is much larger than Mercury's _______________________________, transits of Venus are even _______________________________ than those of Mercury.
A _______________________________ of Venus occurs only when two things happen simultaneously:
|