Why does Venus shine so bright?
You might have seen it twinkle in the evening. Venus is shining and will continue to grow in the coming weeks. Even its gentle light illuminates us.
Venus Express: Probe Discovery Launched in 2005, the Venus Express probe spent nearly 8 years in orbit around Venus. During this time many discoveries have been made on the planet.
It’s impossible to notice, twinkling on the southwest horizon every night.
Whether you live in the suburbs or the countryside, today you can admire Venus in all its glory as the sun disappears below the horizon.
It is so bright that its glow is visible on the water. There is no doubt that in low-light environments we can also remove its shadow. Excellent.
And it will get worse in the coming weeks: brightness is expected to increase 20% in the coming weeks by February 20th.
But why does the mythical goddess of beauty shine so brightly?
In these dark winter evenings, to the point of eclipsing Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, which he happily passes by.
(The latter does not regain its dominance until the planet sets about four hours after the Sun.) The brightness that diminishes even over short distances.
It is the relative proximity of Earth, and in particular its permanent cloud cover – also responsible for a strong greenhouse effect (the goddess of love is the solar system’s hottest planet) – very reflective, which makes Venus such a bright star.
In addition, it orbits faster in an orbit closer to the Sun than Earth (an average of 108 million kilometers against 150 million).
It has been coming towards us with great progress recently, and on March 25 the planet will be with us again (see picture below). On that day, we will be only 42 million kilometers away from him.
He should feel even lighter. No, the brightness is fading. Why ? Because the illuminated part of the Earth we see is shrinking.
Like the Moon, but visible only in an instrument (telescope, binoculars or telescope), the planet presents us with phases.
Since it is aligned with the Sun, it is always seen from a terrestrial point of view from the first quarter to the end of the fifties… so
After February 20, its brightness decreases despite the decrease in the distance between the two neighboring planets. Will go Venus is visible with Mars, her lover
Hence the commonly known Shepherd Star is Vesper, the evening star at that time (Asperos, for the Greeks “evening star”, for morning the Romans called him Lucifer; for the Greeks it was Eosphoros).
A false friend, however, because Venus, it will be remembered, is a planet and not a star.
Perhaps while looking at it, you must have noticed that a bright star in the sky goes up a little with it.
Like them, it does not shine, an indication that it is also a planet, etymologically seen as a wandering star (asteroid), in contrast to stationary stars. Of course, this is Mars.
The two, in love with mythology, keep reaching for the celestial vault. Note that the crescent moon will visit you on January 31 in the constellation of Pisces.
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