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The rare astronomical event of Planet Venus passing directly between the Sun and Earth, the century's last transit, stunned sky gazers and astronomers across India on Wednesday. All of them assembled at planetariums to catch the once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. Transits of Venus happen in pairs eight years apart, with more than a century between cycles. During the pass, Venus appeared as a small, dark round spot moving across the face of the sun, like a bug on a dinner plate. A professor in Guwahati , Assam explained the significance of a transit and called it a rare celestial event. "This transit of Venus is occurring, astronomically transit is a passage, so when Venus is seen passing over the body of sun, we refer to it as a transit. So, it is a very rare celestial event. In this century we had two transits and transit comes in a pair with a gap of eight years," said S. Bordoloi, a professor. This transit, which bookends a 2004-2012 pair, began at 6:09 p.m. EDT (2209 GMT) and will last for six hours and 40 minutes. Times can vary by seven minutes depending on the location of the observer. Sky watchers on seven continents, including Antarctica , are able to see all or part of the Venus transit, with telescopes outfitted with solar filters to protect the eyes. People assembled at planetariums and other sites in Hyderabad and Lucknow to witness the memorable event. Meanwhile, cadets of the National Cadet Corps (NCC) gathered at a common location in Nainital to look at the transit. "We saw the transit, which is looking very good. It will now come after 105 to 110 years," said Manish, a cadet. Telescopes, such as NASA's Kepler space telescope, are being used to find so-called extra solar planets that pass in front of their parent stars, much like Venus will pass by the sun. During the transit, astronomers will be able to measure Venus' thick atmosphere and use the data to develop techniques for measuring atmospheres around other planets. Studies of Venus' atmosphere also could shed light on why Earth and Venus, which are almost exactly the same size and orbit approximately the same distance from the sun, ended up so different. Venus has a chokingly dense atmosphere 100 times thicker than Earth's that is mostly carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that heats up Venus' surface to a lead-melting 900 degrees Fahrenheit (482 degrees Celsius). The weather is brutal, with towering clouds of sulphuric acid that jet around the planet at 220 mph, regularly dousing the planet with acid rain. During previous transits of Venus, scientists were able to figure out the size of the solar system and the distance between the sun and the planets. This transit of Venus is only the eighth since the invention of the telescope, and it will be the last one until December 10-11, 2117. It also is the first to take place with a spacecraft at Venus.

Venus transit stuns sky gazers, astronomers across India