Pasachoff, J. M. (Author)
Sheehan, W. (Author)
The discovery of Venus's atmosphere has been widely attributed to the Russian academician M.V. Lomonosov from his observations of the 1761 transit of Venus from St. Petersburg. Other observers at the time also made observations that have been ascribed to the effects of the atmosphere of Venus. Though Venus does have an atmosphere one hundred times denser than the Earth's and refracts sunlight so as to produce an 'aureole' around the planet's disk when it is ingressing and egressing the solar limb, many eighteenth century observers also upheld the doctrine of cosmic pluralism: believing that the planets were inhabited, they had a preconceived bias for believing that the other planets must have atmospheres. A careful re-examination of several of the most important accounts of eighteenth century observers and comparisons with the observations of the nineteenth century and 2004 transits shows that Lomonosov inferred the existence of Venus's atmosphere from observations related to the 'black drop', which has nothing to do with the atmosphere of Venus. Several observers of the eighteenth-century transits, including Chappe d'Auteroche, Bergman, and Wargentin in 1761 and Wales, Dymond, and Rittenhouse in 1769, may have made bona fide observations of the aureole produced by the atmosphere of Venus. Therefore, it appears that several observers-but not Lomonosov-should receive credit for first detecting the aureole due to refraction of sunlight by the atmosphere of Venus during a transit. This crucial observation occurred almost three decades before Johann Schroeter independently demonstrated the existence of the atmosphere of Venus from his analysis of extensions of the semicircle of light of the planet near inferior conjunction, which are produced by back-scattering of light by aerosol-sized particles.
...More
Article
Shiltsev, Vladimir;
(2014)
The 1761 Discovery of Venus' Atmosphere: Lomonosov and Others
(/isis/citation/CBB001214538/)
Article
Stavinschi, M.;
(2012)
Romanian Astronomy and the 1874 Transit of Venus
(/isis/citation/CBB001221498/)
Book
Crato, Nuno;
Reis, Fernando;
Tirapicos, Luís;
(2004)
Trânsitos de Vénus: À Procura da Escala Exacta do Sistema Solar
(/isis/citation/CBB000471380/)
Book
William Sheehan;
John Westfall;
(2014)
Celestial Shadows: Eclipses, Transits, and Occultations
(/isis/citation/CBB308692967/)
Book
Maor, Eli;
(2000)
June 8, 2004: Venus in Transit
(/isis/citation/CBB000110245/)
Article
Wayne Orchiston;
(2017)
Cook, Green, Maskelyne and the 1769 transit of Venus: the legacy of the Tahitian observations
(/isis/citation/CBB468376565/)
Book
Wulf, Andrea;
(2012)
Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens
(/isis/citation/CBB001251251/)
Article
Vitor Bonifácio;
Isabel Malaquias;
(2018)
Transits of Venus and other astronomical observations made by João de Loureiro (1717-1791) in Cochinchina
(/isis/citation/CBB164635750/)
Book
Kurtz, D. W.;
(2005)
Transits of Venus: New Views of the Solar System and Galaxy
(/isis/citation/CBB000771529/)
Book
Anderson, Mark;
(2012)
The Day the World Discovered the Sun: An Extraordinary Story of Scientific Adventure and the Race to Track the Transit of Venus
(/isis/citation/CBB001251252/)
Book
Kragh, Helge;
(2008)
The Moon That Wasn't: The Saga of Venus' Spurious Satellite
(/isis/citation/CBB000951102/)
Article
Pedersen, Kurt Møller;
Kragh, Helge;
(2008)
The Phantom Moon of Venus, 1645--1768
(/isis/citation/CBB001034783/)
Article
Kapoor, R. C.;
(2013)
Indian Astronomy and the Transits of Venus. 1: The Early Observations
(/isis/citation/CBB001214524/)
Article
Tropp, E. A.;
Karpeev, E. P.;
(2011)
The Physics, Chemistry, and Astronomy of M. V. Lomonosov
(/isis/citation/CBB001211393/)
Article
Tobin, William;
(2013)
Transits of Venus and Mercury as Muses
(/isis/citation/CBB001214521/)
Book
Maor, Eli;
(2004)
Venus in Transit
(/isis/citation/CBB000772756/)
Article
William M. Barton;
(2022)
The Poetry of Jeremiah Horrocks’s Venus in sole visa (1662): Astronomy, Authority, and the ‘New Science’
(/isis/citation/CBB506910086/)
Article
Schaefer, Bradley E.;
(2001)
The Transit of Venus and the Notorious Black Drop Effect
(/isis/citation/CBB000102746/)
Article
Sheehan, William;
Misch, Anthony;
(2004)
Ménage à Trois: David Peck Todd, Mabel Loomis Todd, Austin Dickinson, and the 1882 Transit of Venus
(/isis/citation/CBB000470383/)
Chapter
Bowen, Alan C.;
Todd, Robert B.;
(2009)
Heraclides of Pontus on the Motions of Venus and Mercury
(/isis/citation/CBB001036073/)
Be the first to comment!