| | Venus Transit and the Search for Extraterrestrial life |
 | | Since the first evidence for the existence of an extrasolar planet in fact came from the observation of its transit in front of a star astronomers in many places are now preparing themselves to use the upcoming Venus Transit as a testing ground for developing methods for detecting small, earth-size, planets revolving around foreign suns. |
 | | The Venus Transits of 1761 and 1769 provided an excellent opportunity for this mentality and the task defined by Edmund Halley, the discoverer of Halley1s comet, to use these transits for measuring the distance to the sun came to be the first international collaboration project in science. |
 | | By the time of the next pair of Venus Transits, in 1761 and 1769, Isaac Newton was already in his grave and science had come to earn a place as the main, overriding paradigm of human thinking and seemed to be successful everywhere. |
| www.experiencefestival.com /a/venus_transit/id/3779 (1522 words) |