Venus rules love, beauty, balance and romance
Venus is the second planet from the Sun and, because it is closer to the sun than Earth, it is also the brightest object in our night sky. It is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty, which also represents its astrological associations. Venus rules love, beauty, balance and romance. It is associated with Taurus and Libra, as well as with the 7th house of relationships.
Venus is the second-brightest object in the night sky
Venus is so bright that you can see it from Earth with the naked eye. In fact, Venus is the second-brightest object in the night sky (after only the Moon). It is brightest just before dawn and during dusk, when Venus can cast strong shadows.
Because Venus is closer to the Sun than Earth is, it always appears close to the Sun in Earth’s sky. This makes it difficult to study Venus with telescopes because of bright sunlight near our horizon. However, radar observations have been made of other aspects of Venus since 1984 and spacecraft have flown by or orbited around Earth since 1962.
Venus is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty
Venus is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. With her son Cupid, Venus taught mortals about love and beauty.
As the brightest object in the night sky (except for the moon), Venus has been worshiped for thousands of years. The dictionary describes it as “a planet shining brilliantly with a steady phosphorescent light” and “believed by ancients to be two stars (the morning star and evening star) that are now known to be a single planet.”
When you see Venus in your chart, it means you’re attracted to nice things, beautiful places and good times. You probably like art. You may also be attracted to beautiful people or people with a lot of money. Your tastes might be expensive, but they’re usually worth it!
The orbit of Venus is deeply inclined to the plane of the ecliptic
A retrograde rotation means that Venus spins backwards when compared to all the other planets. While most of the planets spin in a counter clockwise direction, Venus spins clockwise. While this may be an interesting factoid, it is especially remarkable because we don’t see any other “left handed” planets in our solar system.
The axis tilt of Venus is 177 degrees (compared to Earth’s 23 degree tilt). This means that only Mercury has a near zero degree axis tilt. The tilted orbit means that the planet will always appear fairly close to the sun while moving through its orbit.
This highly inclined orbit creates bizarre orbital patterns for our neighbour planet.<
Venus rotates so slowly that its day is longer than its year
There’s only one other planet in our solar system that spins the same way. Can you guess which one?
Like Venus, Uranus rotates clockwise. However, while Uranus is tilted on its side so that it rolls as it orbits the Sun, Venus is upright and just goes about its business. Therefore, if you were on Venus and looking up at the sky, you would see exactly what we see here on Earth: The Sun rising in the east and setting in the west.
Venus’ rotation brings it into sight as both an evening star and a morning star
You’ve probably seen Venus before—it’s the glowing evening or morning star that appears at random times throughout the year.
This is because Venus orbits the sun exactly twice as fast as it rotates on its axis, meaning that its rotation is actually backwards compared to Earth and all of the other planets in our solar system. This has two major effects on Venus’ appearance from Earth. First, it means that Venus always shows us the same face, which doesn’t happen with any other planet. Second, we see different parts of this face depending on whether we are looking at an evening star or a morning star: when Venus is an evening star, we are seeing its back half; when it’s a morning star, we’re seeing its front half instead!
Spacecraft have landed on, or orbited, all the planets except Venus
It’s hard to land spacecraft on Venus, which is why we don’t know as much about this planet as we do about some of the other planets. Here’s why:
- The atmosphere of Venus is so dense that most spacecraft would be crushed before they could land.
- The surface temperature of Venus can get very high. In fact, it’s higher than the melting point of lead!
- Venus has a thick atmosphere with very strong winds and storms. This makes it even harder for spacecraft to land there.
- Sulfuric acid clouds move around in the atmosphere on Venus.
Venus is a beautiful planet but not an easy one to visit!
Venus is a beautiful world, with temperatures much like Earth. It is also the only planet in our solar system that has an atmosphere similar to ours. Unfortunately, Venus is also the most inhospitable planet to visit! Its atmosphere is extremely dense and full of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid. As a result, global warming has gone wild on Venus, with temperatures reaching more than 450°C (850°F). The surface pressure is about 90 times greater than Earth’s atmospheric pressure, making you feel as if you were under water at a depth of 1km (~3200 feet)! And don’t even think about going for a swim! The runaway greenhouse effect produces strong winds that blow up to 150mph. You would not be able to stand it! Nevertheless, we have sent many spacecraft to orbit and flyby this planet in the past decades, because Venus holds many clues of how Earth will look like in another billion years or so if we do not stop polluting our own environment. This “Earth gone wild” can help us better understand how our own home-world works—and whether or not we are changing it too quickly for its own good