The Pages of The Gray Wizard

Venus

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Venus
The Morning and The Evening Star

 

Except for the Sun and Moon, Venus is the brightest object in the sky, yet Venus is a planet of paradox.  No other planet comes closer to us or appears larger or brighter, but a telescope shows nothing of its surface because of a veil of planet covering clouds.

 
Venus is the brightest object in the sky after the Sun and our Moon. Due to the fact that its orbit is inside the Earth's, we can see Venus only when we are looking in the general direction of the Sun. It is visible only during the first few hours after sunset, when we call it the "evening star" or before sunrise when we refer to it as "the morning star." Venus is covered with thick layers of clouds that we are unable to see through. When viewing Venus through a telescope you can see that it goes through phases similar to our Moon. It is quite interesting to see the planet in its crescent phase. In 1982 a Soviet Lander took photo's of the surface of Venus and revealed flat rocks and soil. The clouds around Venus are made up primarily of sulfuric acid droplets. Its atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide.

 

venus.jpg (18347 bytes)

"Image courtesy Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Copyright (c) California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA. All rights reserved."

[click on thumbnail for larger image]

Venus Facts

Distance from Earth

0.72 AU

Apparent Magnitude

-4.0 to -4.6

Mass

0.81 x Earth's mass
4.87 x 1024 kg

Venusian Day

243 Earth days

Radius

0.95 x Earth's radius
12,104 km diameter

Venusian Year

224.7 Earth days

Apparent Size

10-64 arcsecs