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The Transit of Venus is a phenomena witnessed very seldomly -- in fact, next Tuesday's transit will be the first witnessable from Earth since 1882. (Google News points to hundreds of stories.) The transit of a planet occurs when it passes between another and the sun, thus only transits of Mercury and Venus are possible from Earth. It will begin at 05:13 Universal Time, which is 9:13pm July 7 on the US West Coast (more info), and it will last several hours. NASA has a map that shows when and where it will be viewable (more maps here), some safety tips for properly viewing the sun, and a Sun-Earth Day 2004 web site with lots more, including where to find webcasts. This Transit of Venus FAQ should answer many of your questions, including why transits of Venus follow a regular pattern of recurrence at intervals of 8, 121.5, 8, and 105.5 years. FYI, The event won't be visible in North American sky until the sun rises, and by then it will be almost over. If you miss this one, you'll have one more chance at it on June 6, 2012, when the transit will be most visible the Pacific.

(I submitted this to Slashdot several days ago; I was rejected.)

The Transit of Venus is a phenomena witnessed very seldomly -- in fact, next Tuesday's transit will be the first witnessable from Earth since 1882. (Google News points to hundreds of stories.) The transit of a planet occurs when it passes between another and the sun, thus only transits of Mercury and Venus are possible from Earth. It will begin at 05:13 Universal Time, which is 9:13pm July 7 on the US West Coast (more info), and it will last several hours. NASA has a map that shows when and where it will be viewable (more maps here), some safety tips for properly viewing the sun, and a Sun-Earth Day 2004 web site with lots more, including where to find webcasts. This Transit of Venus FAQ should answer many of your questions, including why transits of Venus follow a regular pattern of recurrence at intervals of 8, 121.5, 8, and 105.5 years. FYI, The event won't be visible in North American sky until the sun rises, and by then it will be almost over. If you miss this one, you'll have one more chance at it on June 6, 2012, when the transit will be most visible the Pacific.

(I submitted this to Slashdot several days ago; I was rejected.)

The US Naval Observatory has 11 photographic plates from the last transit of venus in 1882. As well, there are photographs from the various expeditions it sent out to take measurements for the purpose of calculating the AU, the distance of earth from the sun. These can be found here. There's also more fun to be had.

Yep, acording to one of the linked pages, #14 are safe.