Venus to Leave East Lansing this Week

This will be the last week Venus will be visible in the East Lansing sky until late this year. While Venus is very bright, its position in the sky will soon be too close to the sun for Venus to be seen from the earth. The glare of the sun will mask Venus until it reappears in late November or early December in the evening sky after sundown.

Venus orbits the sun in the same plane as the earth, but it is 30% closer to the sun than the earth and orbits the sun in a little over seven months compared to the earth’s twelve-month orbit. For part of our year, Venus’s orbit places the planet on the earth’s side of the sun, but for nearly all of this earth-year, Venus has been traveling away from earth to the side of the sun opposite the earth.

Since January 2014, Venus has been rising in our east before the sun. Venus is visible just before sunrise, hence it has been our “Morning Star.” As the sun comes up over the horizon, Venus is lost in the glare of the sun with sunrise. As the earth rotates, Venus moves across the sky during the day and sets in the west just before the sun, and so it has not been visible in the evening.

At the end of this week, Venus will move “behind” the sun for those of us in East Lansing and will no longer be visible at any time of the day. As Venus’s orbit comes back around the sun, Venus will start moving back toward earth and will trail the sun across the East Lansing sky. As the weeks pass, Venus will be farther and farther behind the sun in the sky. In late November or early December, Venus will be far enough behind the sun in the sky to be visible to us after sunset. With its appearance after sunset, Venus will become the “Evening Star.”

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