To see Venus you must look for her early in the morning in the east before the Sun is up, or in the evening in the west just after the Sun has gone down. This is the reason Venus is sometimes called an evening star and sometimes a morning star. Venus goes through phases like Mercury and our Moon, but these cannot be seen with the naked eye.
When Venus and the Sun get too close together she cannot be seen, for the light of the Sun is so powerful that her reflected light is dimmed by it. Venus is a bright straw color and she is a beautiful object in the sky when visible, but there are weeks at a time when she cannot be seen, by reason of the Sun outshining her when she is between us and the Sun or on the other side of the Sun. The day and the year of Venus are, like Mercury, probably equal, and hence one side of Venus is always turned toward the Sun and basks in its light and heat, while the other side is turned away from the Sun and is doomed forever to cold and darkness.
Venus is 67 millions of miles from the Sun.
- Her diameter is 7,700 miles.
- Her day is 225 of our days long.
- Her year is 225 of our days long.
Our Earth.—The Earth is the third planet in distance from our Sun, and although it is small compared with some of the others it is so important to us that it will be described in a separate chapter. [Fig. 55] shows a view of the Earth as she would be seen from the Moon.
Fig. 55.—The Earth.
Fig. 56.—Jupiter.
The Earth is 93 millions of miles from the Sun.