The "Transit of Venus March" is a march scored for military brass band written by John Philip Sousa in 1883 to celebrate the 1882 Transit of Venus and published by the J.W. Pepper Company. The work was erroneously thought to be lost for over 100 years when a piano transcription published in 1896 was found by a Library of Congress employee in 2003. Copies of the original Pepper publication, however, do survive.
Sheet music cover (1896)
John Philip Sousa, the composer of the march.
The statue of Joseph Henry, the unveiling of which was Sousa's reason for writing the march.
The 1882 transit, which inspired Sousa to write the march.
A transit of Venus takes place when Venus passes directly between the Sun and the Earth, becoming visible against the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen as a small black circle moving across the face of the Sun.
William Richard Lavender, Jeremiah Horrocks (1618–1641) (1903), Astley Hall Museum and Art Gallery
Diagram from David Rittenhouse's observations of the 1769 transit of Venus
Image: NASA's SDO Satellite Captures First Image of 2012 Venus Transit (Full Disc)
Image: SDO's Ultra high Definition View of 2012 Venus Transit (171 Angstrom Full Disc)
