Hey! What is that Bright Star near Sunset?

Friday, February 9th, 2007 at 12:48 PM by Dave

This reminds me of that quote from the original Star Wars movie, “That’s no Moon, it’s a Space Station.” Well, this is no star but a planet called Venus.

The ancient Greeks called the wandering stars, planētēs, or wanderers. We now use the word planet for these denizens of our solar system.

Venus will be an evening star for most of the spring and summer. This means that is will be found in the west just at Sunset for an hour or so until it sets.

If you could look at Venus through a telescope right now you would see that it has a shape to it. We commonly call this shape a gibbous shape, similar to one of the phases of our Moon. As Venus moves around the Sun this shape will change to a quarter phase then eventually to a crescent phase. When Venus is closer to the Earth we will see the crescent phase. You can see the crescent phase during the summer months with binoculars or a small telescope.

Galileo was the first to discover that Venus went through phases, like the Moon. This was proof of the Heliocentric Theory proposed by Copernicus, that everything went around the Sun (Venus included). At the time of Galileo the Earth was thought to be the center of the Universe (the Geocentric Theory).

Perhaps we can wax philosophically about the Goddess of Love right around Valentines Day?

Enjoy this lovely apparition through the upcoming months!

Posted in Astronomy News

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