The world waits
By the time Venus next swung by, in 1761, the world was waiting. Transit-spotting was the Human Genome Project of the day - carried out by teams around the globe, each wanting to be the first to unlock the secret.
But why all the fuss? Well, it turns out the transits could help to calculate the distance between the Earth and the Sun, the so-called astronomical unit.
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Sketches of past transit observation stations around the globe
Image: Science Museum/SSPL |
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