10 Days of Venus and Jupiter
4.03.2023

Venus and Jupiter may have caught your attention lately. The impending close conjunction of the two brightest planets visible in clear evening skies has been hard to miss. With Jupiter at the top, starting...

APOD: 2023 March 5 Б Jupiter and Venus over Italy
5.03.2023

What are those two bright spots? Planets. A few days ago, the two brightest planets in the night sky passed within a single degree of each other in what is termed a conjunction. Visible just after sunset in much of the world, the two bright spots were Jupiter (left) and Venus (right).

Crescents of Venus
26.08.2023

Just as the Moon goes through phases, Venus' visible sunlit hemisphere waxes and wanes. This sequence of telescopic images illustrates the steady changes for Venus during its recent 2023 apparition as our evening star. Gliding along its interior orbit between Earth and Sun, Venus grows larger during that period because it is approaching planet Earth.

A Happy Sky over Los Angeles
12.11.2017

Sometimes, the sky may seem to smile over much of planet Earth. On this day in 2008, visible the world over, was an unusual superposition of our Moon and the planets Venus and Jupiter.

APOD: 2023 November 14 Б Three Planets Rock
14.11.2023

In the fading darkness before dawn, a tilted triangle appeared to balance atop a rock formation off the southern tip of Sicily. Making up the points of the triangle are three of the four brightest objects visible in EarthБs sky: Jupiter, Venus and the Moon.

Reflections of Venus and Moon
19.05.2018

Posing near the western horizon, a brilliant evening star and slender young crescent shared reflections in a calm sea last Thursday after sunset. Recorded in this snapshot from the Atlantic beach at Santa Marinella...

The Surface of Venus from Venera 13
17.03.2021

If you could stand on Venus -- what would you see? Pictured is the view from Venera 13, a robotic Soviet lander which parachuted and air-braked down through the thick Venusian atmosphere in March of 1982.

APOD: 2023 July 3 Б Venus in Ultraviolet from Akatsuki
3.07.2023

Why is Venus so different from Earth? To help find out, Japan launched the robotic Akatsuki spacecraft which entered orbit around Venus late in 2015 after an unplanned five-year adventure around the inner Solar System.

Venus and Jupiter on the Horizon
26.11.2019

What are those two bright objects on the horizon? Venus and Jupiter. The two brightest planets in the night sky passed very close together -- angularly -- just two days ago. In real space, they were...

APOD: 2023 March 6 Б Jupiter and Venus from Earth
6.03.2023

It was visible around the world. The sunset conjunction of Jupiter and Venus in 2012 was visible almost no matter where you lived on Earth. Anyone on the planet with a clear western horizon at sunset could see them.