“Next month we will be the last people living today to witness one of the rarest astronomical events: the transit of Venus. If it’s not cloudy, we need do no more than draw back our curtains on June 6 to see the brightest star of the night transformed into a tiny black dot crossing the face of the sun. But astronomers in the 18th Century traveled thousands of miles and risked their lives to witness this precious sight. They did so because they believed Venus held the key to the most pressing astronomical quest of the age: the size of the solar system.” w/ photos
