Bright dusk sky10/2/2023 ![]() Venus is about the same size as Earth, but unlike our world, it is covered with a tremendously dense carbon dioxide atmosphere. It’s not just celestial mechanics that makes Venus “pop,” though-planetary science is a factor, too. As our star dips below the horizon, darkening the sky, Venus becomes an unmissably bright planetary beacon. That’s where we are now: Venus reaches greatest eastern elongation on June 4, when it will be 45 degrees away from the sun. At greatest western elongation, it appears to be a morning star, rising well before the sun does, and at greatest eastern elongation, it’s an evening star, setting late. The easiest time to see Venus is when it’s at maximum elongation from the sun. (Incidentally, this back-and-forth motion helped inspire the term “ planets” itself, which derives from “ planētēs”-Greek for “wanderers.”) It rounds the bend again, starting to head west until it passes Earth on the near side of the sun once more. Then it reverses direction as it rounds that part of its orbit, moving eastward, or “to the left.” It passes behind the sun on the far side of its orbit-reaching superior conjunction-and then continues on until it’s as far east as it gets: the point of greatest eastern elongation. Venus moves “to the right”-technically westward-until it reaches the point where it’s farthest from the sun, called greatest western elongation. Sometimes we see it passing very near the sun in the sky, when it’s closest to us in space. The situation is the same with Venus, except its orbit is the track, and the sun is the flag in the center. It passes in front of the flag, and the cycle starts again. It rounds that part, moving toward you, and then you see it moving left to right again. It moves along the far side of the track, behind the flag, until it reaches the left side. When it reaches the right side of the track, you see it round the bend and then start moving right to left. The car starts between you and the flag and passes in front of it, moving left to right. For reference, let’s say there’s a flag marking the center of the track. Imagine standing a short distance away from a race car going around a track. How we see Venus in our sky depends on where it is in its orbit. It moves faster around our home star, too, so its year is shorter than ours, lasting only about 225 Earth days. Venus is 110 million kilometers from the sun, compared with our 150 million km. It’s not only real, it’s a whole planet, and it orbits the sun closer than Earth does. I get e-mails pretty often from slightly panicked people about it. Venus is incredibly bright, shockingly so, which is why it’s commonly mistaken for a UFO. It’s not hard to spot: go out when the sky is getting dark and look west and then up. If you haven’t seen the planet before, right now is the best time to take a gander. ![]() That’s Venus, the second rock from the sun, Earth’s evil twin and frequent UFO impersonator. Is it a helicopter, a supernova, a- gasp-UFO? If you’ve ventured outside after sunset recently and happened to glance to the west, you may have noticed an astonishingly bright “star” glaring down on you, seemingly hovering in the sky.
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