Our planetary neighbor Venus becomes a brilliant beacon in the sky each time it reaches its greatest orbital distance from the sun | Analysis by BadAstronomer
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. Is it a helicopter, a supernova, a—gasp—UFO?If you haven’t seen the planet before, right now is the best time to take a gander. It’s not hard to spot: go out when the sky is getting dark and look west and then up. Venus is incredibly bright, shockingly so, which is why it’s commonly mistaken for a UFO.
The situation is the same with Venus, except its orbit is the track, and the sun is the flag in the center. Sometimes we see it passing very near the sun in the sky, when it’s closest to us in space. We call this point inferior conjunction. Venus moves “to the right”—technically westward—until it reaches the point where it’s farthest from the sun, called greatest western elongation. Then it reverses direction as it rounds that part of its orbit, moving eastward, or “to the left.
But there’s more. Carefully looking at the interplay of light and geometry on Venus can reveal something simple yet profound about our solar system. Like our moon, Venus undergoes phases . When it’s on the far side of the sun, we see it fully lit like a full moon. As it moves to eastern elongation—as it is now—we see it half lit, and then it becomes an ever thinning crescent as it moves between us and the sun.
Special Events to Watch For June 2: Mars will pass directly through the Beehive star cluster, an easy “binoculars object” that contains dozens or even hundreds of visible stars.June 21: Venus, the thin crescent moon and Mars will make a tight triangle in the west after sunset. Mars and Venus wil lbe close together for several weeks around this time.
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