Transit Of Venus Celebration At Te Papa

Friday, 4 June 2004

Transit Of Venus Celebration At Te Papa

A capacity crowd will gather in Te Papa's Soundings Theatre on the evening of Tuesday 8 June, to witness the Transit of Venus, via various live web broadcasts from around the world, and hear the final of the Royal Society of New Zealand's Transit of Venus lectures, produced by Radio New Zealand.

This grand finale has been sponsored by the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO, and will be broadcast live on the National Programme at 7.05 p.m. as part of a 3-hour special Transit of Venus programme, fronted by Kim Hill. Listeners may also hear it on the following Sunday, 13 June, at 2.00 p.m.

The UNESCO NZ Science Lecture, "Voyages of the Future", is by Professor Paul Callaghan, who is director of the MacDiarmid Institute for Materials Science and Nanotechnology, based at Victoria University of Wellington. Demand for seats has been unprecedented and there are now no seats left.

In the hour leading up to the broadcast, from 6.05 - 7.00 p.m., Kim Hill will be linking with people all around the world, ending up in Whitby where the Transit of Venus Expedition members from New Zealand are viewing the actual Transit, weather permitting. The two teams from Nelson College and Tolaga Bay Area School will be joined by about 40 other New Zealanders - the High Commissioner, Rt Hon Russell Marshall, the Mayor of Gisborne Meng Foon, journalists, and ex-pat scientists from Cambridge - who will witness the dawn departure of the Endeavour, hailed by the Matariki cultural group from London. Whitby is Captain Cook's hometown, and is one of the main centres in the UK for the Transit of Venus celebrations.

Meanwhile, the group from Pakuranga College will be on the opposite coast, in Preston, viewing the Transit from the very house (Carr House in Much Hoole) where Jeremiah Horrocks is believed to have observed the 1639

Transit. As far as we know, he and his friend William Crabtree, were the only two people to seet it.

The historical significance of the Transit of Venus now supercedes its importance as an astronomical event. The quest to measure the distance to the Sun brought many countries together in the 1760s in the first ever scientific collaboration. The Royal Society commissioned James Cook and fellow astronomer Charles Green to go to Tahiti for the 3 June 1769 Transit. Afterwards, he sailed west, under secret orders from the Admiralty, charting New Zealand and claiming it for King George III.

On the night of 8 June, another group from Tolaga Bay Area School will be standing on Point Venus, the northernmost point of Tahiti, where Cook recorded his observations. This trip, including the video camera and laptop the students are taking to record their experiences and sen d them back to www.transitofvenus.co.nz , has also been funded by the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO. The Tahitian connection is particularly significant for Tolaga Bay, which is one of the first places that Cook landed. He brought with him Tupaia, the Tahitian High Priest who was able to communicate with local Maori and made a great impression on them.

The Transit of Venus Expedition to the UK was sponsored by Freemasons New Zealand with substantial support from the British High Commission, British Airways, and British Council New Zealand.

ENDS

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