SkyMatters: How to spot Venus in the sky on Valentine's Day
Romance is in the air in February as we welcome (or perhaps merely acknowledge!) Valentine’s Day on the 14th. Venus is the mythological Greek Goddess of Love and this year you can impress your valentine by pointing out the planet Venus as it shines brilliantly in the southern sky from dusk until about 9pm (depending on your local horizon). Find a restaurant with a south-west facing window and you can even watch it as it gradually dips below the horizon while you sip a glass of bubbly. You can impress your Valentine further by explaining that Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system, not because it is the closest to the Sun – that honour going to Mercury – but because it is undergoing a runaway greenhouse effect. Venus’ atmosphere is composed of 96% carbon dioxide that acts as a heat-trapping blanket, raising the surface temperature to over 450 degrees C, or hot enough to melt lead.
To make matters worse the clouds which permanently obscure its surface from view are composed of sulfuric acid, so if the heat doesn’t get you the sulfuric acid rain certainly will. For adventurous valentines with a pair of binoculars or small telescope, and do think carefully about bringing either on a first date, you can see that in February Venus is about 30% illuminated and will appear as a small crescent.
