Transit of Venus, 2012. Venus black spot at top transiting the Sun from 5_6 June 2012. The transit occurred as Venus moved from left to right, with ingress occurring at around 22:09 UTC on 5 June and egress occurring at around 04:49 UTC on 6 June. A transit occurs when Venus passes in front of the Sun as seen from Earth. Transits by Venus across the Sun are rare, occurring in 8_year pairs separated by more than 100 years. This was the second of the pair of transits, with the earlier transit occurring in 2004. The next pair of transits will occur in 2117 and 2125. This image is from the Solar X_Ray Imager SXI instrument on NOAA磗 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite GOES_15. The transit is shown twice, first without Venus labelled and then with Venus labelled.