AuroracastUKLearn
Venus
The brightest thing in the sky after the Sun and Moon, and the one people report as a UFO.
Seeing it from the UK
You cannot miss it and you do not need anything to see it. When Venus is well placed it is far brighter than any star, a steady white point low in the west after sunset or low in the east before dawn, which is why it is called the evening star and the morning star even though it is the same object. It is the single most common thing reported as a strange light in the sky. Through binoculars or a small telescope it shows phases like the Moon, which is worth seeing once because it is what convinced people the Earth goes round the Sun.
Venus is almost exactly the same size as the Earth and about as different from it as a planet can be. It is wrapped in unbroken cloud, which is why the picture shows no surface at all, and those clouds are sulphuric acid. Underneath them the air is so thick that standing on the surface would feel like being nine hundred metres down in the ocean.
It is also the hottest planet in the solar system, hotter than Mercury despite being much further from the Sun. The carbon dioxide atmosphere traps heat so effectively that the surface sits at around 465 degrees, hot enough to melt lead, and it is that temperature everywhere, day and night, pole to pole.
The cloud is also why it is so bright to us. It reflects about three quarters of the sunlight falling on it, and Venus comes closer to the Earth than any other planet. That combination is what makes it unmistakable.
The numbers
- Distance from the Sun
- About 67 million miles, roughly three quarters of ours
- A day there
- 243 Earth days, longer than its own year
- A year there
- 225 Earth days
- Surface temperature
- About 465 degrees, and much the same everywhere
- Moons
- None
- Which way it spins
- Backwards compared with almost everything else
To find out whether it is up tonight, and when it gets properly dark where you are, see Sky Tonight.