Venus: The Shiny “Star” That Isn’t a Star

That brilliant “star” may not be a star at all

You step outside shortly after sunset and notice one brilliant point of light. It is brighter than almost everything else in the sky. It looks unusually bright and steady, and night after night it can appear near the same part of the horizon.

Why does Venus look like such a bright star?

Venus does not produce its own visible light the way a star does. What we see is sunlight reflecting from the planet. Venus is covered by thick clouds that reflect a large amount of incoming sunlight back into space.

Venus has three big advantages

Why do we usually see Venus near sunrise or sunset?

Venus travels around the Sun on an orbit that lies inside Earth’s orbit. From our point of view, that means Venus never appears very far from the Sun in the sky.

Venus looks surprisingly similar to Earth — from a distance

Venus and Earth are reasonably similar in size and both are rocky planets. That is why Venus is sometimes described as Earth’s “sister planet”.

Venus is the hottest planet in the Solar System

Mercury is closer to the Sun, so you might expect Mercury to be hotter. But Venus has an extremely thick atmosphere that traps heat through a powerful greenhouse effect.

A planet with a very unusual clock

Venus rotates backwards compared with most planets

Venus rotates in the opposite direction to most planets in the Solar System.

Look carefully at that brilliant light near the horizon

If you see an exceptionally bright, steady object shortly after sunset or before sunrise, there is a good chance you may be looking at Venus. What appears to be a simple point of light is actually an entire world: a rocky planet roughly similar in size to Earth, hidden beneath brilliant clouds and heated to extraordinary temperatures.