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Fort Venus located on the north coast of Tahiti. On 3 June 1769, navigator Captain James Cook, naturalist Joseph Banks, astronomer Charles Green and naturalist Daniel Solander recorded the transit of Venus from the island of Tahiti during Cook's first voyage around the world. [1]
On 16 February 1768 the Royal Society petitioned King George III to finance a scientific expedition to the Pacific to study and observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the face of the sun to enable the measurement of the distance from the Earth to the Sun. [2] Royal approval was granted for the expedition, and the Admiralty elected to combine the scientific voyage with a confidential mission ...
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy.Cook made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, during which he achieved the first recorded European discovery of eastern Australia, Hawaii and undertook the first circumnavigation of New Zealand.
The first voyage of James Cook was a discovery expedition to the south Pacific Ocean, with aims of observing the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun [1] and seeking evidence of the alleged southern territories, named by that time as Terra Australis Incognita. [2] The ship chosen for the voyage was HMS Endeavour.
Captain James Cook FRS (7 November [O.S. 27 October] 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, cartographer and naval officer famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and to New Zealand and Australia in particular.
Unfamiliar with such ships, the Māori people at Cook's first landing point in Poverty Bay thought the ship was a floating island, or a gigantic bird from their mythical homeland of Hawaiki. [7] Endeavour spent the next six months sailing close to shore, [ 42 ] while Cook mapped the coastline and concluded that New Zealand comprised two large ...
The ship ventured on scientific missions in the following years, first recording the transit of Venus in Tahiti and then charting the coasts of Australia and New Zealand in 1770.
Sketchings of the 1769 Venus Transit by Captain James Cook and Charles Green, showing the black drop effect. Green joined Cook's first voyage of circumnavigation in 1768, accompanied by a servant. Green was one of two official astronomers appointed by the Royal Society to observe the transit; the other was Cook himself, who was a capable ...