Transit of Mercury from Venus
[[Image:Transit of Mercury from Venus on March 21st, 1894 1.jpg|thumb|200px|Transit of Mercury on March 22st 1894 simulated by the ''[[Stellarium]]'']]
A '''transit of Mercury across the Sun as seen from Venus''' takes place when the planet [[Mercury (planet)|Mercury]] passes directly between the [[Sun]] and [[Venus (planet)|Venus]], obscuring a small part of the Sun's disc for an observer on Venus. During a [[astronomical transit|transit]], Mercury can be seen from Venus as a small black disc moving across the face of the Sun.
Transits of Mercury from Venus occur in an irregular fashion: sometimes there are several per decade, while on other occasions there are longer gaps. The overall frequency seems to be somewhat greater than the frequency of [[transit of Mercury|transits of Mercury from Earth]].
Naturally, no one has ever seen a transit of Mercury from Venus.
The Mercury-Venus [[synodic period]] is 144.5662 days. It can be calculated using the formula 1/(1/P-1/Q), where P is the [[orbital period]] of Mercury (87.968435 days) and Q is the orbital period of Venus (224.695434 days).
The [[inclination]] of Mercury's orbit with respect to Venus's [[ecliptic]] is 4.33°, which is less than its value of 7.00° with respect to Earth's ecliptic.
<!-- cos i12 = sin i1 sin i2 cos (OM1 - OM2) * cos i1 cos i2 -->
The transit that occurred on [[March 22]], [[1894]] was particularly interesting because on the 21st, when it began, there were also [[transit of Venus from Saturn|transits of Venus]] and [[transit of Mercury from Saturn|of Mercury]] visible from Saturn. There was no overlap among the three transits, however.
==Past and future transits ==
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{| border cellspacing=0 cellpadding=5 align="center"
!colspan="2"|Transits of Mercury from Venus
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| [[March 22]] [[1894]]
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| [[November 17]] [[2005]]
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| [[June 4]] [[2007]]
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| [[June 3]] [[2011]]
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| [[December 18]] [[2012]]
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| [[December 17]] [[2016]]
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| [[July 2]] [[2022]]
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| [[January 16]] [[2028]]
|-
| [[August 1]] [[2033]]
|-
| [[June 24]] [[2058]]
|-
| [[June 24]] [[2062]]
|-
| [[January 9]] [[2064]]
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| [[January 8]] [[2068]]
|-
| [[July 25]] [[2069]]
|}
==See also==
* [[Astronomical transit]]
{{transit visibility table}}
==References==
* [[Albert Marth]], ''Note on the Transit of Mercury over the Sun’s Disc, which takes place for Venus on 1894 March 21, and on the Transits of Venus and Mercury, which occur for Saturn’s System on the same day'', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, '''54''' (1894), 172–174. [http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1894MNRAS..54..172M]
==External links==
* [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/ JPL Solar System Simulator]
[[Category:Astronomical transits]]
[[fr:Transit de Mercure depuis Vénus]]
[[it:Transito di Mercurio da Venere]]
[[ja:水星の日面通過 (金星)]]