Venus Transit 2012 – The Ultimate Prometheus Viral?
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So, yeah. Everyone knows that today the planet Venus passed between the Earth and the Sun. Especially Fox, which has Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (review) hitting theatres this weekend. Can you think of a better rare celestial event to capitalize on? Dig it!
Star gazers (and perhaps legions of movie fans) will have their eyes on the sky today to catch a glimpse of The Transit of Venus, a rare celestial event that occurs when the planet passes directly between Earth and the Sun. Such transits help us to identify the capacity for life on other worlds as they move across the face of their home star. It was a transit like this that helped the scientists at Weyland Industries identify life on a distant world, which would ultimately lead to a world-changing, exploratory space mission aboard the ship The Prometheus.
So is the Transit of Venus timing and the release of the Ridley Scott film a coincidence? The heavens reveal all beginning this afternoon. You won’t want to miss it – the last one was in 1874, later inspiring Gustav Holst to write “The Planets.” And if you’d like some company, catch it via livestream hosted by Astronomers Without Borders and Discovery News. “Planetary transits may seem like no more than an entertaining celestial event, but they could uncover the kind of world depicted in Ridley Scott’s new film, ‘Prometheus,’ said Seth Shostak, of SETI Institute.
“When planets hundreds of light-years away pass in front of their home star, they slightly dim the light from that star. NASA’s Kepler space telescope has found more than two thousand such transits, and discovers new ones every day. Within a year or two, it’s expected that this instrument will find a planet that’s a cousin of the Earth — one laquered in liquid oceans, and wrapped in a thick atmosphere. Such a world could well be home to extraterrestrial biology — and possibly even intelligent beings. The premise of ‘Prometheus’ is well grounded in modern research.”
Prometheus, starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Patrick Wilson, Logan Marshall-Green, and Ben Foster, will be in theaters on June 8th, 2012. The film has been rated R for sci-fi violence including some intense images and brief language.
Synopsis
Ridley Scott, director of ‘Alien’ and ‘Blade Runner,’ returns to the genre he helped define. With ‘Prometheus’ he creates a groundbreaking mythology in which a team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a thrilling journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.
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