Why does venus shine so brightly

Unlike stars that emit their own light, Venus reflects the light from the Sun. The Morning Star has nothing to do with the North Star, which is favored by navigators because it indicates the North. However, the North Star is not very bright. Venus is the second planet closest to the Sun, while Earth is the third. This arrangement makes it impossible for us to see Venus in the middle of the night.

This planet never ventures very far from the Sun during its orbit, and can therefore only be seen at dusk or dawn. Every year, there is a period or two of a few months which make it possible to observe Venus in the best conditions:.

Venus setting over the sea. This is called elongation. If the elongation is small, this means that Venus is close to the Sun. So, when the Sun is set, this planet is also—or it is just above the horizon and can therefore be hidden from us by trees or buildings.

On the other hand, when the elongation is greater, Venus ventures further away from the Sun. It is higher up in the sky when the Sun is set, making this the moment when observation is the easiest and the most interesting. Since late November , Venus has been visible in the night sky.

Its distance or elongation with the Sun will gradually increase until March 24th, As a result, this planet will rise a bit more every day over the southwest horizon, and its brightness will become increasingly more intense. In April , Venus is visible for three and a half hours after sunset and will reach magnitude The next good time to observe Venus begins in early July at dawn.

And yet both of these behemoths are far inferior in brightness to the brightest planet in the sky: Venus. Indeed, Venus is the first planet you'll spot — maybe even before sunset, if you know where to look in the south-southwest sky. Venus is gaining altitude in the twilight, boldly showing itself off after six months of hiding behind any inconvenient obstructions near the southwestern horizon.

And Venus is brightening, too, since it's speeding toward Earth as it catches up to us in its faster orbit around the sun. The brightest planets in October's night sky: How to see them and when. As Venus travels around the sun inside Earth's orbit, it alternates regularly from evening to morning sky and back, spending about 9.

Some ancient Greek astronomers actually thought these "stars" were two different celestial bodies. They named the morning object after Phosphorus, the harbinger of light, and the evening object for Hesperus, the son of Atlas. It was the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras BC who first realized that Phosphorus and Hesperus were one and the same object. Such behavior was puzzling to the ancients and was not really understood until the time of Galileo.

After moving to Pisa in the autumn of , Galileo started observing Venus through his crude telescope. One evening, he noticed that a small slice seemed to be missing from Venus' disk. After several more months, Venus appeared in the shape of a crescent — in other words, it seemed to display the same phases as the moon.

This was a major discovery, which ultimately helped deliver a deathblow to the long-held concept of an Earth-centered universe. Related: Photos of Venus, the mysterious planet next door. Venus wanders only a limited distance east or west of the sun, since, like Mercury , it is an "inferior" planet orbiting the sun more closely than Earth does.

Watching its movement is akin to watching an auto race from the grandstand: all the action takes place in front of you, and it's necessary to turn only a limited amount either way to see it.

Its greatest distance to the side of the Sun is called maximum elongation, and as we can see, Venus is quite a distance from the Sun in the sky. For example, on 28 April, when Venus is about 70 million kilometres from Earth, it sets below the western horizon four hours after the Sun does.

Indeed, if you turn a pair of binoculars at minimum they would need to be 10 x 50 binoculars or a telescope towards Venus during mid-April, you should see it with a crescent phase, much like the Moon, with only 37 per cent of its visible disc is illuminated by the Sun. By 28 April, as Venus continues on its orbit around the Sun and our viewing angle begins to change, this has reduced to 26 per cent. Yet despite only a small percentage of the visible part of Venus being illuminated, it can still shine so brightly because its atmosphere is composed of thick clouds of carbon dioxide and sulphuric acid that completely enshroud Venus and which are incredibly reflective.

Venus has an albedo of 0. In particular, look out for the thin crescent of the Moon near Venus on the evening of 26 April — if you have a DSLR camera and a steady tripod, perhaps try shooting some pictures of the two close by? Now that planet Saturn is effectively lost in the dusk twilight for UK-based observers, you may be wondering what has happened to the other four bright naked-eye planets.