If you lived on Venus, cooking for Thanksgiving would be much less stressful.
Second Time’s A Charm
The Japanese spacecraft Akatsuki has made thrust corrections necessary to put itself in orbit around Venus.
Casting Radio Shadows To Map The Moon And Venus
Sometimes astronomical light is reflected from natural sources or emitted by the objects themselves, but sometimes we actively shine light on an object to get an image.
Evening Star
[av_video src=’http://vimeo.com/112644328′ format=’16-9′ width=’16’ height=’9′] When Venus is in the western sky after sunset, it is known as the evening star. It is a time when Venus is most prominently seen. For most of 2015 Venus will be quite visible in the evening as it approaches greatest elongation in May.
Just a Phase
Yesterday I mentioned that after discovering the moons of Jupiter, Galileo went on to observe the phases of Venus, which further reinforced the idea that the Earth moved about the Sun. So just how do phases of a planet prove it revolves around the Sun?
Water World
Venus and Earth are quite similar in many ways. The diameter of Venus is about 95% of Earth’s, its mass is about 80% of Earth’s, it has a similar geological make up, and surface gravity. Where they differ greatly is in their surface temperature. Venus has a surface temperature of over 800 degrees Fahrenheit, while Earth’s average temperature is around 57 degrees (460 C vs 14 C for you science types). They also differ in the amount of water they have. Venus has almost no water, while Earth is a watery world.
Astronomical Units
Thanks to a rare alignment of planets 250 years ago, we were able to learn for the first time just how large our solar system really is.
Rose of Venus
If this image looks a little odd, that’s because it doesn’t show the path of Venus relative to the Sun, but rather relative to Earth. When you look at patterns such as this, you can see how difficult it was to accurately describe the motions of the planets.
Cautionary Tale
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, and the most like Earth in terms of its mass (80% Earth’s) and size (95% Earth’s). In almost every other aspect it is radically different. It has a thick, carbon dioxide atmosphere, little water, a weak magnetic field, and a surface temperature of 740 K (860 F, 460 C). Despite this radical difference, early Venus was a wet world much like early Earth. We know from the levels of hydrogen and deuterium in Venus’ atmosphere that it too had a wet past. But somehow Venus and Earth diverged.