Historedia
Episode 1 of 2

Prediction of the 1639 Transit

When
1639
Where
Much Hoole
Part of
Jeremiah Horrocks Observes the Transit of Venus

Horrocks corrected Kepler's calculations to predict the 1639 transit, which Kepler had identified as a near-miss.

Kepler's tables predicted a near-miss for 1639. Horrocks, having made his own observations of Venus, corrected the orbital calculations. He realized transits occur in pairs eight years apart, allowing him to predict the event would indeed occur.

Sources

  1. Jeremiah Horrocks Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-02
  2. Transit of Venus Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-11

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.