The Transit of Venus, one of the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena, takes place when the planet passes directly between the Earth and Sun. TIME takes a look at photographs from the once-in-a-lifetime event.
The Transit of Venus: Photographs from a Rare Celestial Event
SDO / NASA / Getty Images
The approach of Venus is captured by the SDO NASA satellite before it transits across the face of the sun from space, on June 5, 2012. The next pair of events will not happen again until December 2117 and December 2125.