Transit of Venus 1631 to the Present

by Lomb, Nick

• ISBN13: 9781615190553
• ISBN10: 1615190554
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-04-03
• Publisher: The Experiment

Summary

The transit of the planet Venus across the disk of the Sun is one of the rarest planetary alignments. In fact, only seven of these planetary events have occurred since the invention of the telescope in 1608.The next transit of Venus takes place on 5 June 2012. This will be the last opportunity for anyone currently living to view the transit, which will not take place again until 2117. A transit occurs when a planet crosses the disc of the Sun as seen from the Earth. Earlier transits of Venus have played a major role in scientific discovery, as ahead of the 1769 transit, scientists recognized that by recording the transit, the distance between the Sun and the earth could be measured. That and many other related stories of scientific discovery connected with earlier transits that have taken place since the invention of the telescope are brilliantly described in this visual feast of a book.

Author Biography

Nick Lomb was Curator of Astronomy at the Sydney Observatory for over thirty years (1979-2010). He continues to work as a consultant astronomer for the Sydney Powerhouse Museum and Sydney Observatory. He is the author of the Australian Sky Guide, published annually by the Powerhouse Museum, as well several books on astronomy including Astronomy for the Southern Sky (1986) and the catalogue produced for the Powerhouse Museum’s exhibition on the 2004 transit of Venus, Transitof Venus: The Scientific Event that Led Captain Cook to Australia (2004).

Table of Contents

Transit Fast Facts	p. 10
Introduction	p. 11
A spot of unusual magnitude: 1639	p. 24
Frozen plains and tropical seas: 1761	p. 44
Venus of the South Seas: 1769	p. 76
Capturing the transit: 1874 and 1882	p. 106
Space-age transit: 2004	p. 164
Observing the 2012 transit	p. 200
Glossary	p. 216
Bibliography	p. 218
Acknowledgments	p. 223
Index	p. 224
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