venus

This Weekend, Measure the Distance to Venus Yourself

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This Sunday, Venus reaches a special position from which it is easy to estimate roughly how large the average Venus-Sun distance (RVS) is relative to the average Earth-Sun distance (RES).  (I say “on average” because the Venus-Sun distance isn’t quite constant.  Venus’s orbit, like that of all the planets, isn’t quite circular.  But this is a small effect that we can ignore for the purpose of rough estimates.)

If you are a true diehard astronomy-geek, by all means get up at 5 or 5:30 in the morning on Sunday (or really any of the next few days) to check this directly.  I can assure you (since I have been up at that time recently, due to chronic insomnia more than astronomy-geekhood) that Venus looks absolutely gorgeous against the deep blue of the pre-dawn sky.  But if you have no intention on getting up that early, or clouds intervene, there’s a shortcut — on your phone.

Greatest Elongation, Near-Circular Orbits, Half-Lighting and Right Angles

On Sunday, Venus moves to a position where, from Earth’s perspective, the angle between Venus and the Sun on the sky reaches its maximum.  This position is called “greatest elongation“, and it is reached twice per cycle, once in the evening sky and once in the morning.  If Venus’s orbit were perfectly circular, this would also be the moment when Venus appears half-lit; as we’ve been seeing in two recent posts (1,2), that’s an effect of simple geometry:

  • if Venus’s orbit were circular, then at greatest elongation, the triangle formed by Earth, Venus and the Sun would be a right angle where Venus is located, and Venus would be half-lit.

This holds for Mercury too, as it would for any near Sun-orbiting planet.

Since Venus’s orbit isn’t quite circular, this isn’t precisely true; half lit and the right angle come together, but greatest elongation is off just a few days. This is a minor detail unless you’re an astronomy-geek, and won’t keep us from getting a good estimate of the Venus-Sun distance.

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Who Orbits Who, and Where? Check it Yourself

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So far the arguments given in recent posts give us a clear idea of how the Earth-Moon system works: Earth’s a spinning sphere of diameter about 8000 miles (13000 km), and the size of the Moon and its distance are known too (diameter about 1/4 Earth’s, and distance about 30 times Earth’s diameter). We also know that the Sun is much further than the Moon and larger than the Earth, though we don’t know more details yet.

What else can we learn just with simple observations? Since the stars’ daily motion is an illusion from the Earth’s spin, and since the stars do not visibly move relative to one another, our attention is drawn next to the motion of the objects that move dramatically relative to the stars: the Sun and the planets.  Exactly once each year, the Sun appears to go around the Earth, such that the stars that are overhead at midnight, and thus opposite the Sun, change slightly each day.  The question of whether the Earth goes round the Sun or vice versa is one we’ll return to.   

Let’s focus today on the planets (other than Earth) — the wanderers, as the classical Greeks called them.  Do some of them go round the Earth?  Others around the Sun?  Which ones have small orbits, and which ones have big orbits? In answering these questions, we’ll start to build up a clearer picture of the “Solar System” (in which we include the Sun, the planets and their moons, as well as asteroids and comets, but not the stars of the night sky.)

The Basic Patterns

If we make the assumption (whose validity we will check later) that the planets are moving in near-circles around whatever they orbit, then it’s not hard to figure out who orbits who. For each possible type of orbit, a planet will exhibit a different pattern of sizes and phases across its “cycle“ when seen through binoculars or a small telescope. Even with the naked eye, a planet’s locations in the sky and changes in brightness during its cycle give us strong clues. Simply by looking at these patterns, we can figure out who orbits who.

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No Comet, But Two Crescents

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I’m sure you’ve all read in books that Venus is a planet that orbits the Sun and is closer to the Sun than is the Earth. But why learn from books what you can check for yourself?!? [Note: If you missed Wednesday evening’s discussion of particle physics involving me, Sean Carroll and Alan Boyle, you can … Read more

Transitions

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A number of transitions to talk about: First, I’m participating in a panel discussion today (Thursday June 7th) on the transition that has seen me add science writer and popularizer to my resume’. Here’s the link… free tickets required, click here for details and tickets. Sponsored by SoNYC (Science online New York City), panel discussion entitled “Reaching … Read more

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