Metro/Screenshot/Vimeo Remember, kids, don't look directly at the sun.

In honour of International Transit of Venus Day, we’re going to dedicate this space to a little science, courtesy of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.  In 1716, English astronomer Edmond Halley — whose name you may recognize from a certain comet — suggested measuring the distance between Earth and the sun by timing the transit of Venus and calculating the solar parallax , following a method first proposed by Scottish astronomer James Gregory in his Optica Promota.

Remember, if you learn your standard candles (not a bad name for a garage rock band, by the way) and your solar parallax now, you’ll sound smart this afternoon. That’s science.

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