Venus shines brightly as the ‘evening star’

Venus in the evening sky

If you look up in the sky just after sunset, you will see a bright object that looks like a star or a satellite.
But it is neither. It is actually, the planet Venus.

The planet has been out of sight for the past couple of months and invisible to skywatchers on Earth because it was passing behind the Sun.

It will remain visible in the evening sky till March 2025 (part of a cycle that repeats every 19 months or so) and is affectionately known as “The Evening Star.”

Venus is the second planet from the Sun, and Earth’s closest planetary neighbor. According to NASA, it is the third brightest object in the sky after the Sun and Moon.

The space agency revealed that Venus is similar in structure and size to Earth, and is sometimes called Earth’s evil twin.

“Its thick atmosphere traps heat in a runaway greenhouse effect, making it the hottest planet in our solar system with surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead,” it said.

“Below the dense, persistent clouds, the surface has volcanoes and deformed mountains.”

Venus was named after the ancient Roman god of love and beauty. It orbits the Sun from an average distance of 67 million miles (Earth orbits around the Sun at 93 million miles). It takes six minutes for sunlight to travel from the Sun to the surface of Venus.

“It is nearest to Earth, Venus is about 24 million (about 38 million kilometers) away,” NASA said about Earth’s planetary neighbour.

“But most of the time the two planets are farther apart. The maximum distance between Venus and Earth is about 162 million miles (261 million kilometers).”

Venus is one of only two planets in our solar system that does not have a moon. The other is Mercury.

No special equipment is needed to observe Venus.

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1 Comment

  1. angelwatch
    October 15, 2024

    Hello Everyone – paragraph 2 and 3 are contradictory.
    Paragraph 3 is correct because from Giraudel, we have been seeing this star every night for months now. At first we thought it was a satellite, then we thought it must be a UFO. It would dance up and down, disappear/appear and then just simply disappear.
    It appears very early after sunset and around 7:30 pm it disappears.
    Thanks for letting us know that it is planet Venus, because we have really been very curious about this object seen in the skies.

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