Venus
General Characteristic
Upper and lower Conjunction
Venus in Mythology

General Characteristic

The distance between Venus and Earth fluctuates from 40 to 259 million km. At the time, when the distance is the shortest, we see Venus like a narrow crescent. The first man who observed the phases of Venus was the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei in 1609. In sequence Venus is the second planet from Sun, 108,2 million km away from it. Its proportions and weight are very similar to the Earth. Its diameter is 12 104 km. Venus is orbiting around Sun on an almost circular orbit at average speed of 35 km per hour. One circulation takes 224,7 of days. The speed of rotation is very slow, the slowest of all planets in the Solar system , one rotation takes 243.16 days, so one day is then longer than a year. And in addition, it turns in the opposite direction then the others planets. The Sun rises in the west and sets in the east.

After Sun and Moon Venus is the brightest object in the sky. It's fifteen times brighter than the brightest star in the sky, Sirius. Nevertheless, we can't recognise any details on its surface by telescopes, because it is covered with a cloud layer all the time. The only thing, what we are able to observe on Venus are the phases of this planet.

The surface of Venus is hidden behind a dense layer of opaque clouds, which reflect about 60% of solar light. From measuring of interplanetary probes like Venera, Mariner and Pioneer Venus and Earth observations, we got the idea of its atmosphere. The atmosphere ends roughly up on height of 1000 km above the surface. The major part of it consists of carbon dioxide, helium, nitrogen, oxygen and sulphuric acid.

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Upper and lower Conjunction

But there is a snag in it…
Planets
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If we consider watching Venus from the Earth/Sun, we realize that it can get to the maximum angle distance of 47°. We talk about "EASTERN ELONGATION" if we consider Venus the Evening Star and about "Western ELONGATION" in case we call Venus the Morning Star. The period when Venus is passing the Sun is the above mentioned CONJUNCTION. In reality it is far from being as simple as it looks. In the conjunction with Sun, Venus is located on the Earth-Sun connection. During the upper conjunction Venus is behind the Sun, during the lower conjunction it is on the Earth-Sun connection.

But there is a snag in it…

These conjunctions (upper and lower) are not recognized by the fact whether we see Venus in the sky under or above the Sun. It is a positioin of the objevte like on a scheme. In a special case of lower conjunction Venus can directly transit the solar disc. We can recognise Upper and lower conjunction for example by a binocular. In case of upper conjunction Venus is in full moon (it looks like small roundel) and at lower conjunction Venus is closer to the Earth and is almost in new moon (it looks like a thin crescent). At upper conjunction Venus moves slowly from west to the east, at lower conjunction it moves faster from east to west. This speed of this movement is only apparent.

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Planets

don't circle round the Sun on one level. Their orbits are different. The basic plain is the plain of the orbit of the Earth. The grades of Venus' and Earth's plains is 3,4°. Because of this grade Venus often misses the solar disk and is mostly invisible. When Venus is close to the Earth's orbit it can transit the Sun. This situation is very rare. One transit can be observed in 2012 , but it will not be observable from Czech Republic), the next transits will be in 2117 and 2125.
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Venus in mythology

Venus and Aphrodite
Birth of Venus
Istar
Other cultures
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Thanks to its brightness it's the most noticable planet. In Siberia it is the only planet, which got a name - Cholbon. Nobody then can be amazed that it has been already known in long past past.

Venus and Aphrodite

Venus got its name from Roman goddess of love and peace. In Greece it was Aphrodite, in Egypt Isis and in Babylon Istar. It was connected with metals like copper, triangle, number five, blue colour and Friday. Saxons gave their earth mother name Fria (equivalent to previous goddess from another culture). From her name arise "Friday", while French "Vendredi" denotes Greece-Latin origin.
Venus-Aphrodite is known as a daughter of Sky and Sea (Uranius and Gaya). Sometimes considered as daughter of Zeus, or born from ocean foam.

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Birth of Venus

There have been two versions of her birth. According to the first of them she is older than the Olympus gods. When titan Cronus snipped his father's Uranius genitals and threw them to the ocean, foam formed around the whole island of Cyprus, and Aphrodite was born from it as an adult woman.
The second variant is told by Homer. He says, that Aphrodite is a daughter of Zeus and a sea nymph Dione. She was married to Hefaistos and she had children with him, but she was intersted in her lovers more than her family. Among her lovers were Ares, the god of wars and beautiful Adonis. Her children were Eros , Deimoses and Harmonia. One of her mortal sons was Aeneas, whose father was Anchises, the king of Dardania. As a punishment for this love to goddess Anchises was stricken by lightning.

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Istar

This story resemble to Sumerian myth about goddess Istar. Sumers, who adopted Greek astronomy gave Venus names Inanna, Istar or Estar. As a morning star she was the goddess of love, sex and also wars. She had wings, often rode a lion and was armed with a bow and arrows. She is often portrayed near the god of the Sun. Her sister, who was seen in the evening, guarded the gate to empire of the dead.
She went down into the Stygian, to find the soul of her lover Tammuz. During travelling down, she lost her beauty and when she came to the Queen of death, she was hung on hook and let to die. But gods saved her and she became the Queen of sky.

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Other cultures

Chinese gave her name "Big white goddess" and she was connected with metals (mainly gold), western direction and Fridays. The idea to make a calendar according to configuration of planets was taken from India.
Astronomers in the Central America had similar rules. Their Maya was goddess of war, destruction and fatality. Maya astronomers chronicled their exact observations of planets and their ritual calendar was found due to this observations.

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