Saturday, June 2, 2012

Dear future explorer: 


We hope to excite your sense of wonder. We have seen how awed you are when you get to see a planet like Venus, Mars, or Saturn through a telescope. Imagine How much more exciting must it be to see one of those same planets silhouetted against the stunning backdrop of our Sun’s erupting activity? We invite you to discover by walking in the footsteps of explorers of the past. If you are able to live a moment in those shoes, everything you study, experience, and take for granted, becomes more meaningful and inspiring. This will be the one chance in your lifetime to walk in these shoes.
To nod to a famous quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” Events like this allow you to explore that idea…to acknowledge the lasting impact of early scientists and the foundations that have fueled the progression of science as we know it today. Would we have traveled to the Moon or sent probes into space without the early observations and calculations gathered and derived by watching Venus transit the Sun? Quite possibly not.
We want to show you that you are standing on a planet that's part of a larger solar system, and that by making observations - such as those we're making of the Transit of Venus - we can understand more about the solar system, our universe, and our place in them.

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