venus

Tune in to hear about when a predawn conjunction will take place, and hear about all the wild features of our closest planet, Venus.

Jupiter gets its closest to earth in 2023. The giant planet at one point will be the nearest object to the moon! Hear about the mass of Jupiter and its system of moons.

This week we’ll learn about Venus’ ferocious winds, just how slow the planet spins, and how the carbon dioxide bubbling planet could perfectly line up with the Sun.

Venus is now at its very brightest, at magnitude -4.7, which makes beginners wonder what that means. If Venus is the most brilliant starlike object, what can we compare it with? Well, summer’s brightest stars are magnitude zero and one, which makes them 100 times less luminous than Venus. The magnitude business started with an ancient Greek named Hipparchus, who assigned each star a different magnitude. Hear the buildup to using photometers and what how certain starts became visible with time.

Venus is now at its very brightest, at magnitude -4.7, which makes beginners wonder what that means. If Venus is the most brilliant starlike object, what can we compare it with? Well, summer’s brightest stars are magnitude zero and one, which makes them 100 times less luminous than Venus. The magnitude business started with an ancient Greek named Hipparchus, who assigned each star a different magnitude. Hear the buildup to using photometers and what how certain starts became visible with time.

Earth's sister planet has heated up the evening sky all year. No doubt you've seen that dazzling "star" after sunset: This has been its best showing since 2015. This eight year interval is no accident. So happens, Venus takes 224.8 days to orbit the Sun, so that 13 of its “years” (13 x 224.8) is the same number as eight Earth years (8 x 365.25). They both work out to 2,922 days. What this means is that after eight years, we on Earth see an exact duplicate of Venusian behavior.

NASA’s chief scientist, Dr. Jim Garvin, discusses the upcoming DAVINCI mission to Venus and this new exciting era of planetary exploration.

The Morning Star, Venus, is about to perform a series of worthy conjunctions. Right now and for the rest of the month, it’s the brightest member of a four-planet line-up. To its lower left hovers Jupiter; to its upper right you’ll find dimmer Mars and then, highest up, Saturn.

It will be a great sky year, so let’s get a sneak preview. Start now, the next clear evening. There’s Venus, the Evening Star, still close to its absolute brightest as it hovers low above the sunset point in the fading dusk. Steadily-braced binoculars or any small telescope will reveal its crescent shape, now bigger yet thinner than any time this year. It’s the best time to see it.

Next week crescent Moon will join Venus just as that nearest-of-all-planets stands at its very brightest of the year.