Venus

Venus is one of the planets.

When it is visible, it is the brightest, most conspicuous, and easiest to recognize of all the planets.

As of February 2007, Venus is the "evening star." It shines brightly in the West in the hours after sunset. It is visible long before the sky is dark enough to see any other star, and when people "wish upon a star" very often they are actually looking at Venus. You can see it shining through a window in a lit room, like the "wishing star" in the opening of Walt Disney's animated cartoon, Pinocchio."

Although it is not quite true, as astronomy books sometimes claim, that "planets do not twinkle," Venus does shine with a noticeably steadier light than the stars do. When looking at Venus, it is quite possible to wonder whether one is looking at a plane, until one has watched for long enough to be sure that it is not moving... or, at least, not moving quickly enough to notice.

Venus alternates back and forth between being the "evening star" and the "morning star." As the evening star, it sets in the West after the sun does. As the morning star, it rises in the East before the sun does. In between, it rises and sets at about the same time as the Sun and is lost in the sun's glare.

Through a small telescope—binoculars will not do, but any real astronomical telescope will—it is possible to see that Venus often does not appear round, but goes through phases like the Moon, depending on how the light of the Sun strikes it.

The planet Venus is about the same size as the Earth. Before explorations made by spacecraft made it clear just how harsh conditions on Venus are, science-fiction writers used to speculate that the temperature and climate of Venus might be within the range of life as we know it on Earth, and many stories have been set on Venus. C. S. Lewis' novel Perelandra takes place on Venus, and is a sort of retelling of the story of the Garden of Eden.