The troubling phenomenon of the black drop produced an elongated shape or ligament between the discs of Venus and the Sun near the point of internal contact. After unsettling the observers trying to make precise timings, it posed equal challenges of explanation.
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This large engraving was part of a paper in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions by the London mathematical teacher, author and publisher Samuel Dunn. Dunn attempted to portray and analyse the black drop. His captions speak of flowing atoms and fibres, and suggest the conceptual difficulties of the irregular and ephemeral phenomenon. |
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