The Day the World Discovered the Sun: An Extraordinary Story of 18th-Century Scientific Adventure and the Race to Track the Transit of Venus

In this exciting tale—part detective story, part history of science—Anderson (“Shakespeare” by Another Name) vividly recreates the torturous explorations and enthralling discovery of three peripatetic and insatiably curious explorers. The French astronomer Jean-Baptiste Chappe d’Auteroche, the British naval captain James Cook, and the Hungarian scientist and priest Maximilian Hell chased Venus across the sky in 1761 and 1769 as its shadow crossed the sun and they sought to uncover one of the 18th-century’s greatest scientific mysteries: the dimensions of the solar system. In these voyages, Cook, Chappe, and Hell determined that the Sun is 95 million miles from Earth and that the Sun’s horizontal parallax is about eight and a half seconds. These discoveries also led to the establishment of lunar longitude methods and the use of the sextant to determine longitude. Anderson points out that the next transit of Venus in June 2012 is sure to add to astronomers’ understanding of the nature of exoplanets in our solar system and whether or not such planets can support life similar to Earth. 16 pages of b&w photos. Agent: Jennifer Weltz, Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency. (June)