Venus is racing towards its big date with the Sun in this movie created with images from the ESA/NASA Soho solar observatory (in these views the Sun is behind a disc to shield the spacecraft's LASCO instrument from the glare). At the start of the video, Mercury is visible to the left but then brighter Venus moves in and passes it, heading towards the Sun. On June 5/6 Venus will make a rare transit across the face of the Sun as seen from Earth. Images: ESA/NASA.