Venus was the first planet to ever be reached by a space probe. In 1962, Mariner 2 flew within 34,400 kilometers of the surface of Venus and transmitted to Earth information about its temperature and details about its atmosphere and rotational period. The Soviet probe, Venera 7 was the first probe to land on Venus.

In painting Venus, Botticelli painted a dark line around the contours of her body. This made it easier to see her bodily forms against the background, and it also emphasized the color of her milky skin.

Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter of the early Renaissance-era. He contributed to the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel and painted the immortal The Birth of Venus.

The countdown to terror has begun. Astronaut Eli Cologne became the first man on Mars, but something went horribly wrong.

Like the planet Mercury, Venus was known in ancient Greece by two different names—Phosphorus (see Lucifer) when it appeared as a morning star and Hesperus when it appeared as an evening star.

Walking around on Venus wouldn’t be a pleasant experience. The Venusian surface is completely dry because the planet suffers from a runaway greenhouse gas effect. Venus’ gravity is almost 91 percent of Earth’s, so you could jump a little higher and objects would feel a bit lighter on Venus, compared with Earth.

Because the outer planet’s orbit is outside the orbit of Earth, one can see it at any time of the night. There is a maximum angle between the Sun and the planet in the sky and that happens when the planet subtends a right angle between Earth and the Sun.

Visible night of Mar 17 – Mar 18, 2021

The moment when Venus passes behind the Sun is typically around seven months after reaching greatest prominence in the morning sky. It does not return to the evening sky until around a year after its disappearance from the morning sky.

Why is Venus called “the Morning Star” or “the Evening Star?” Venus shines so brightly that it is the first “star” to appear in the sky after the Sun sets, or the last to disappear before the Sun rises. Its orbital position changes, thus causing it to appear at different times of the night throughout the year.

Because Mercury and Venus are closer to the Sun than we are (i.e., their orbits are inside the Earth’s orbit), they are never visible at around midnight (or opposite the Sun).

Which planets are visible to the naked eye from Earth? Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are visible for much of the year. Neptune and Uranus are not visible – and of course the eighth planet in our solar system is Earth itself.

As March 2021 opens, however, Venus sits too close to the rising sun to be visible; and as March 2021 draws to a close, Venus looms too close to the setting sun to be seen. In other words, Venus – in its smaller, faster orbit around the sun – is about to “turn the corner” ahead of us in orbit.

The most distant individual star visible to the unaided eye is a little over 4000 light years away, in the constellation Cassiopeia–and though it appears to us as a fairly faint star, it is in reality a supergiant star over 100,000 times more luminous than our Sun.

Sirius, also known as the Dog Star or Sirius A, is the brightest star in Earth’s night sky. The name means “glowing” in Greek — a fitting description, as only a few planets, the full moon and the International Space Station outshine this star. Because Sirius is so bright, it was well-known to the ancients.

To view the Christmas Star, look towards the western horizon on December 21. You will find the planets near the moon just after sunset between December 16th and Christmas Day, with their closest meeting on December 21. Illustration of the crescent Moon passing near the planets in mid-December, from EarthSky.