Unless you’re living under a rock, you almost certainly know that yesterday was the Transit of Venus . . . a rare celestial event in which certain Earthlings (if you happen to live in certain parts of the planet) can watch the planet Venus travel across the face of the sun. There are always two transits about eight years apart, after which more than a century passes before the next one occurs. The transit 8 years ago was not visible in the midwest and the next one does not happen until 2117, so this seemed like something worth paying attention to, if for no other reason than its rarity. What sealed the deal for me was when Carthage astronomy professor Doug Arion told me in a morning show interview that the Transit tends to be something that skips a generation. That is to say that if a relatively young person (like a college student) sees the Transit of Venus, their own children will not live to see the next one, but their grandchildren will. Just hearing that was enticement enough for me to want to experience the Transit, one way or another. In the end, I did what most people did and watched the Transit via several different websites, and I’m really glad I did. There was something surprisingly moving about watching that tiny sphere make it’s way across the sprawling face of the sun. And because the earth is almost exactly the same size as Venus, this was a great way to be given a powerful sense of just how tiny we are compared to our own sun – or of how vast our solar system is. And if there’s anything that most of us need a reminder about, it’s of how small we are in the grand scheme of things.
By coincidence, yesterday also marked the death of science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, who just happens to be the man who first got me thinking about the planet Venus and what it would be like to live there. No, it’s not like the two of us had a chat about it. I’m referring to the first (and last) thing I ever read by Mr. Bradbury: an extraordinary short story called “All Summer in a Day” which I’m pretty sure was a story in a collection called Wide Horizons that we read in fifth or sixth grade. The story involved a small colony of Earthlings- including children- living on the surface of Venus, which is wrapped in unending storms that completely obscure any view of the sun. But once every seven years, for approximately two hours, the clouds part and the sun beats down on the surface of the planet. The story focuses on a group of schoolchildren who are excitedly awaiting the rare event- although they are irritated by a school mate named Margot whose family moved to Venus just five years earlier, so she is the only one of them who has ever seen the sun before. After listening to her repeated description of what the sun looks like, they finally lock her in a closet out of sheer frustration and jealousy. You guessed it- just then the teacher comes in to announce that the sun is about to come out and they are invited to step outside. They do so and delight in the warmth and beauty of the sunshine… running, playing, laughing… until one of them feels a raindrop and they sadly head indoors. Only then, when they hear the sound of someone softly and sadly knocking from inside the closet do they realize that they’ve managed to deprive Margot of the chance to see the sun that she has missed so terribly.
I’m not sure I can adequately convey how powerfully this short story affected me. I was already a Star Trek fan, but this was different – it was a science fiction story in which I could place myself! It was incredibly fun trying to imagine what it would be like to be one of those students living on the surface of another planet. . . and it unleashed my creative juices maybe like nothing before or since. I remember writing several stories of my own that were blatant ripoffs of Mr. Bradbury’s story – and from time to time I have returned to this story with the thought of transforming it into a musical or even a one-act opera. But more than anything, it’s just really fun to remember what it was like the first time I read this story and found myself utterly transported into a completely different time and place. What a sensational feeling that was- and although I’ve had that feeling many times since, there’s something unforgettable about the first time it happens to you. So thank you, Ray Bradbury. . . and thank you, Venus.
*** By the way, viewing the Transit of Venus brought back a childhood memory I hadn’t thought of in many many years. 1974 was the appearance of the comet Kohoutek, which we were led to believe was going to be perhaps the most spectacular sight ever seen in earth’s skies. As it turns out, it didn’t live up to the hype- but I can still remember when my parents awoke me and my siblings in the middle of the night (or at least it felt like the middle of the night) to go out into the front yard and look at Kohoutek, which was very easily visible and pretty darned spectacular to my sixth grade eyes. And now that I know that Kohoutek isn’t expected to return to our solar system for another 75,000 years, I’m even more grateful that my folks rousted us out of bed for what was literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.