Think of the zone they're talking about as a disk: the plane of Earth's orbit, extending out to the maximum distance where the transit is still considered detec

Think of the zone they're talking about as a disk: the plane of Earth's orbit, extending out to the maximum distance where the transit is still considered detectable. Most of that disk's area is far off, towards the edge; little of it is near. The article puts this in a confusing way, imho.