This planetary configuration is represented on a stained glass window, and a museological display nearby includes information on
Jeremiah Horrocks (1618-1641), best known as the first man to observe the transit of Venus.
One of my transit tales was about
Jeremiah Horrocks, the first observer of a transit, in 1639.
Ever since
Jeremiah Horrocks observed the first fleeting passage of our nearest planetary neighbor in 1639 (January issue, page 64), we haven't missed an opportunity to view a transit.
In the 1600s when
Jeremiah Horrocks first discovered we could do this it was probably one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs ever - it meant we could find out how big the solar system was and how big everything else was," said the 27-year-old.
It commemorates the brilliant astronomer
Jeremiah Horrocks from Toxteth Park, who died in 1642 aged just 22, and has been put in place as part of the Liverpool Discovers festival of street art.
HAPPENED THIS DAY 1639
Jeremiah Horrocks became the first astronomer to observe the transit of Venus.
The first recorded Venus transit was observed by two English amateurs:
Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree in 1639.
Stephenson describes the work of two authors who did try to grapple with Kepler's complicated theories, the English astronomer
Jeremiah Horrocks and the Italian Jesuit Giovanni Battista Riccioli (who wrote on the history of astronomy), and he is the first to give these authors deserved recognition.
Venus Seen on the Sun: The First Observation of a Transit of Venus by
Jeremiah HorrocksI was interested to read Eli Maor's article in the January 2012 issue on
Jeremiah Horrocks and the 1639 transit of Venus.
RE: YOUR article in the Daily Post of February 15 about the "Interactive Sculpture" dedicated to
Jeremiah Horrocks.
It will only be the sixth time the event will have been seen since the first recorded sighting by British astronomer
Jeremiah Horrocks in 1639.
