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For Life
2004.06.08

Well today is the big day! If you're reading this early, we hope to see you out there. If the show is already over, we hope you didn't miss it. And today we finally get to teach you what the event is called in English!

Today's Lesson
TRANSIT (of Venus)   （金星の）天体面通過

Explanation

  • When either Mercury (the small planet closest to the sun) or Venus pass in front of the sun, the planet looks like a tiny black disk moving slowly across the sun's surface. We call this event a transit.
  • 水星（太陽に一番近い小さな惑星）か金星が太陽の前面を通過する際、その影はゆっくり移動していく小さな黒い円盤のように見えます。この現象は、transit  と呼ばれます。  

examples

  1. Today will be the only chance to see a transit  of Venus until the year 2012.  
  2. While I was watching the transit  of Venus, I realized how enormous the sun really is. Venus looked so tiny next to it.
  3. My daughter's school is giving each child a piece of dark film to look at the transit  with.

Spaceship WordMaster will make its next regularly scheduled flight again tomorrow - same time, same destination!

*** PROTECT YOUR EYES! Never look directly at the sun; you can damage your eyes instantly! The safest way to view the transit is to project the sun's image onto a piece of paper using a telescope, binoculars, or pinhole. You can also use #14 welder's glass, two layers of fully-exposed and developed black-and-white (NOT color) negative film (only the kind with a layer of silver in it is considered safe), or other filters specially made for viewing the sun. There are many Web sites describing safe ways to watch eclipses if you'd like more information.