1769 Transit of Venus observed from Tahiti while voyaging to (unsuccessfully) observe the 1761 Transit in Sumatra. Using the solar parallax values obtained from the 1769 transit, Hornsby wrote in "Philosophical Transitions" December 1771 that "the mean distance from the Earth to the Sun (is) 93,726,900 English miles." The radar-based value used today for the astronomical unit is . This is only a difference of eight-tenths of one percent. Considering what these astronomers had to work with, their results were "absolutely remarkable". 1769 Transit of Venus observed from Tahiti On June 3, 1769, British navigator Captain James Cook, British naturalist Joseph Banks, British astronomer Charles Green and
RMS Tahiti "Tahiti"′s passengers and crew if needed. At 9:30 a.m. on 17 August, "Tahiti"′s passengers and some of her crew abandoned ship, with all lifeboats away in 13 minutes; some of her crew remained behind in order to continue efforts to slow the flooding. The American steamer was just arriving on the scene, having signaled that she could take "Tahiti"′s passengers and crew aboard, and she picked them up soon after they abandoned ship. Members of "Tahiti"′s crew, assisted by a boat from "Penybryn", then returned to "Tahiti" in "Tahiti"′s boats and began efforts to save the first class mails and