Venus Shadow
Mauna Kea. The best place on Earth for human beings to look
out into the cosmos. At 14,000 feet, and in the middle of the Pacific Ocean,
more than 2000 miles from the nearest land mass, this is the clearest air you
will find, and the night sky will be the brightest you will ever see. That is why a dozen of the largest,
most advanced, astronomical observatories have been built on top of this
volcano. It is the next best thing to being out in space. Here the eyes of Gaia look out into the
vastness of space, out to the edges of the universe, to the cosmos as it was
more than 10 billion years ago.
Here, in early April, 2004, I observed the line of Mercury, Venus,
Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter stretch across the evening sky. Venus was at its
brightest for seven years, and from atop the volcano the brightest I am ever
likely to see it. So bright it cast a shadow. Whereas the shadow cast by the
sun or moon have soft edges, due to their large diameters, Venus is just a point of light and its shadow is sharp.
