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- Venus usually is easy to spot: it’s the third brightest object in our sky after the Sun and the Moon. The planet lies closer to the Sun than the Earth, which means it always appears near the Sun, generally just before sunrise or just after sunset. As a result, the planet is affectionately known as the “morning star” or “evening star.”
At eastern elongation it is the Evening Star, seen up to a few hours after sunset before setting to the west. At western elongation it becomes the Morning Star, visible to the eastern horizon up to a few hours before dawn. From the latitudes of the British Isles it is never visible at midnight.
Sky map showing the night sky tonight from any location. What planets are visible tonight? Where is Mars, Saturn or Venus? What is the bright star in the sky?
From Earth, Venus is the brightest object in the night sky after our own Moon. The ancients, therefore, gave it great importance in their cultures, even thinking it was two objects: a morning star and an evening star.
- It Began with Venus
- When An Evening Star Is Branded as A Morning Star
- No Double-Meaning For The Inner Planets
- A Celestial Racetrack
- Transition at Opposition
- A Change in Venue
- Additional Reading and Resources
Originally, the terms "morning star" and "evening star" applied only to the brightest planet of all, Venus. It is far more dazzling than any of the actual stars in the sky and does not appear to twinkle. Instead, it glows with a steady, silvery light. The fact that Venus was a wandering star soon became obvious to ancient skywatchers, who noticed i...
It is quite understandable to see why the definitions of "morning star" and "evening star" can be confusing. Sometimes, for instance, we might see a bright planet like Jupiter shining brilliantly just above the eastern horizon in the evening. Within an hour or so, it has climbed well up into the eastern sky. "Ah!" you might say, "Jupiter certainly ...
With Mercury and Venus, however, there is never such ambiguity, since they are never very far from the sun in the sky. Because they orbit the sun more closely than Earth, Mercury and Venus are called "inferior" planets. In fact, in the pre-Christian era, both of these planets had dual identities — two names — as initially it was not realized they a...
An interesting analogy is to consider being a spectator at a motor speedway or racetrack and watching a race between two cars. If we consider for a moment that the two cars represent Mercury and Venus, and that the starting point was on that side of the track closest and directly in front of you (with an imaginary sun at the middle of the track), t...
Things are somewhat different for the planetsthat orbit the sun beyond our own orbit — the so-called "superior" planets, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. In order to differentiate between what qualifies for the branding as a "morning star" versus an "evening star," we would say that during the time frame from when a planet is moving from ...
Incidentally, if we try to use our race track analogy in the case of the superior planets, we'd have to make an important change, because unlike the inferior/inner planets, which are racing around the sun more rapidly than Earth, our home planet in contrast, is moving more rapidly around the sun compared to the superior/outer planets. So rather tha...
There are scores of excellent books and publications about the planets. For those who want to study the subject further, here is a short list of some of them: "A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets,"4th ed., by Donald H. Mensel and Jay M. Pasachoff (Houghton Mifflin, 1999) "Observer's Handbook"(Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Annual Publicat...
Dec 19, 2008 · One of the nicknames of Venus is “the Morning Star”. It’s also known as the Evening Star. Of course, Venus isn’t a star at all, but a planet. So why does Venus have these nicknames?
Sep 17, 2023 · Venus is brightest when two factors combine – the phase of its crescent, plus largest overall size of Venus’ disk – so that the greatest amount of surface area of Venus shows in our sky.
People also ask
Is Venus a morning star or Evening Star?
Is Venus visible at night?
Is Venus a Wandering Star?
Why is Venus not visible at midnight?
Is Venus a'morning star' or An 'Evening Star?
What happens when Venus is at its brightest?
From Earth, Venus is the brightest object in the night sky after our own Moon. The ancients, therefore, gave it great importance in their cultures, even thinking it was two objects: a morning star and an evening star.
