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- Dunér, David
(författare)
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Venusians: the Planet Venus in the 18th-Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate
- 2013
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Ingår i: Journal of Astronomical Data. - 1385-3945. ; 19:1, s. 145-167
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it became possible to believe in the existence of life on other planets on scientific grounds. Once the Earth was no longer the centre of the universe according to Copernicus, once Galileo had aimed his telescope at the Moon and found it a rough globe with mountains and seas, then the assumption of life on other planets became much less far-fetched, and, in general there were no actual differences between Earth and Venus, since both planets orbited the Sun, were of similar size, and possessed mountains and an atmosphere. If there is life on Earth, one may ponder why it could not also exist on Venus. In the extraterrestrial life debate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Moon, our closest celestial body, was the prime candidate for life on other worlds, although a number of scientists and scholars also speculated about life on Venus and on other planets, both within our solar system and beyond its frontiers. This chapter discusses the arguments for life on Venus and those scientific findings that were used to support them, which were based in particular on assumptions and claims that both mountains and an atmosphere had been found on Venus. The transits of Venus in the 1760s became especially important for the notion that life could thrive on Venus. Here, I detect two significant cognitive processes that were at work in the search for life on Venus, i.e., analogical reasoning and epistemic perception, while analogies and interpretations of sensory impressions based on prior knowledge played an important role in astrobiological theories.
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| 2. |
- Sterken, Christiaan, et al.
(författare)
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A Voyage to Vardø – A Scientific Account of an Unscientific Expedition
- 2013
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Ingår i: Journal of Astronomical Data. - 1385-3945. ; 19:1, s. 203-232
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- After the “Venus Transit Conference” that took place at the University of Tromsø from June 2 to June 3, 2012, participants were given the opportunity to either stay in Tromsø until the night of June 5–6, or to participate in a voyage to Finnmark, where the historical sites Vardø, Hammerfest, and the North Cape were to be visited. This voyage culminated in the observation of the 2012 transit of Venus at Vardø. This paper gives a detailed account of this voyage that lasted from June 3 to June 6, and emphasizes the historical, scientific, philosophical, educational and cultural involvement of the participants of the voyage and of the local population. The paper concludes with reflections on the prime condition for success of any of the Venus transit expeditions of the past: the weather must cooperate in the first place – not only during the quarter of a day of the transit, but also during the preceding weeks and months in order to allow the explorers to rightly determine their geographic positions and correctly set their clocks. The latter factor is no longer an issue nowadays, but the weather aspect remains today a limiting factor as much as it was 250 years ago. Despite the variable and partly clouded weather at Vardø during the time of the transit, the participants of this expedition were able to observe Venus in front of the Sun – with interruptions due to quickly moving clouds – between 4.30 a.m. and the fourth contact at 06:53:20 a.m. A large number of impressive, partly ‘dramatic’ photographs have been taken especially in this time interval.
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