dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (10/02/84)
The planet Venus is near the moon Wednesday evening. More on when and where to look -- right after this. September 26 Venus and the Moon One of the most hostile worlds in our solar system is right next door -- Venus. Venus has 900-degree-Fahrenheit surface temperatures -- and such tremendous surface pressure that standing on Venus would be like being underwater on Earth, some half a mile beneath the surface of an ocean. Venus also has fearsome lightning -- acid rainfall -- and an unbreathable carbon dioxide atmosphere. The planet Venus is completely blanketed by thick yellowish clouds -- so we can't SEE its surface. But spacecraft and earth-based radar have probed the surface of Venus. And in the past year it's begun to look very likely that active volcanoes sometimes erupt beneath the Venusian clouds. So Venus is a violent, hostile world on its surface -- but from our vantagepoint across the gulf of space, it's one of the most beautiful worlds in Earth's sky. Its clouds are good at reflecting sunlight -- so Venus is extremely bright -- brighter than anything else in the sky besides the sun and moon. Possibly because it's so bright and fair, Venus is the planet named for the ancient Roman goddess of love. This world spent most of 1984 moving on the far side of the sun from Earth. But now Venus is back in our sky -- visible low in the west after sunset. Wednesday night is a good time to look for Venus because then the planet is located near the crescent moon -- which has also just returned from a short visit into the sun's glare -- and which'll be visible this coming week as a waxing crescent, smiling down from the western sky. Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1983, 1984 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin