This week Venus, the second planet from the sun, will pass directly in front of the Pleiades star cluster. It’s a rare sunset conjunction that’s easy to find with the unaided eye, but best seen through binoculars or a small telescope. Venus approaching the Pleiades on March 31st, photographed by astronomy professor Jimmy Westlake of…
Venus Archives
Venus Crosses the Pleiades This Week
Wednesday, April 4th, 2012 at
7:34 pm
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Could Venus Be Changing Gear?
Monday, February 13th, 2012 at
11:29 am
ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft has discovered that our cloud-covered neighbour spins a little slower than previously measured. Peering through the dense atmosphere in the infrared, the orbiter found surface features were not quite where they should be. Venus Express in orbit since 2006 around our nearest planetary neighbour. Credits: ESA Using the VIRTIS instrument at…
A Sky Show on the Night After Christmas
Saturday, December 24th, 2011 at
1:24 pm
T’was the Night after Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring … …because everyone was outside watching the planets align? It’s true. On Dec. 26th, the night after Christmas, Venus and the slender crescent Moon will gather for a jaw-dropping conjunction in the western sky. The action begins shortly before sunset….
Reliving the 1882 Transit of Venus Which Gave Us the Astronomical Unit
Friday, December 9th, 2011 at
5:48 pm
Nearly 130 years ago , the premier event in astrophysics involved watching a tiny dot slowly sail across the surface of the sun. That dot was our sister planet, Venus, and observing its transit as it passed directly between the Earth and sun was a momentous scientific undertaking. This image comes from 1882, when astronomers…
Venus Holds a Warning for Earth
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 at
5:05 pm
A mysterious high-altitude layer of sulphur dioxide discovered by ESA’s Venus Express has been explained. As well as telling us more about Venus, it could be a warning against injecting our atmosphere with sulphur droplets to mitigate climate change. Close-up on venusian cloud structures at the south pole Venus is blanketed in sulphuric acid clouds…
Venus Alien Atmosphere
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010 at
12:51 am
Venus Express has completed an ‘aerodrag’ campaign that used its solar wings as sails to catch faint wisps of the planet’s atmosphere. The test used the orbiter as an exquisitely accurate sensor to measure atmospheric density barely 180 km above the hot planet. During five aerodrag measurements last week, Venus Express’ solar arrays and control…
Venus Is Still Geologically Active
Thursday, April 8th, 2010 at
6:12 pm
This figure shows the volcanic peak Idunn Mons (at 46°S, 214.5°E) in the Imdr Regio area of Venus. The topography derives from data obtained by NASA’s Magellan spacecraft, with a vertical exageration of 30 times. Radar data (in brown) from Magellan has been draped on top of the topographic data. Bright areas are rough or…
New View of Venus
Thursday, July 19th, 2007 at
8:29 pm
NASA’s Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging spacecraft, known as Messenger, and the European Space Agency’s Venus Express recently provided the most detailed multi-point images of the Venusian atmosphere ever seen. The images result from a June 5 flyby of Venus by Messenger during its long journey to Mercury. Venus Express already was in…
Moon-Venus Occultation in 2007
Sunday, June 10th, 2007 at
6:40 pm
On Monday 18 June the Moon will occult brilliant Venus, mag -4.4, at about 13:58 UT). The exact time of the occultation will depend on your location – the further West you are, the earlier it will occur, so be prepared up to 5 minutes before these times. The occultation is visible from SW Asia,…
MESSENGER Venus Flyby
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at
4:56 pm
Picture this: A spaceship swoops in from the void, plunging toward a cloudy planet about the size of Earth. A laser beam lances out from the ship; it probes the planet’s clouds, striving to reach the hidden surface below. Meanwhile, back on the craft’s home world, scientists perch on the edge of their seats waiting…
The Sun Now (Visible light) |
The Sun Now (H-Alpha light) |
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Aurora Oval (Northern Hemisphere) |
Aurora Oval (Southern Hemisphere) |
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