Venus to blaze next to moon in rare naked eye spectacle

The moon and Venus made for a magnificent sight on a clear night sky over Cork back in March. Picture: Denis Minihane.

Planet Venus will blaze brightly next to the moon on Thursday night in a rare spectacle visible to the naked eye.

According to Astronomy Ireland founder David Moore, Venus and the moon will be "the two brightest objects in the sky" tonight.

He said: "For several hours, an extremely bright 'light' will lie close to the moon. It is the planet Venus making a rare alignment with the moon."

For Venus and the moon to be so close is "rare and extremely spectacular", and Mr Moore is encouraging Irish stargazers not to miss the phenomenon. 

From around 10pm tonight, when the sun sets, Venus should be visible as a "brilliant star" in the sky.

"Tonight, if you look at the moon, you’ll see a brilliant ‘star’ to the lower right, that’s Venus.

It is amazing to the naked eye — it is dozens of times brighter than the brightest star in the sky.

“It is unmistakable and that’s why we want people to go out and watch this chance alignment.

"We want everyone on the island to go and see this free spectacle of nature where the two brightest celestial objects just happen to line up," Mr Moore said.

Venus is even bigger than the moon, and four times wider, but it is 200 times further away.

According to Mr Moore, the sight will be visible from almost anywhere.

However, he has encouraged people who live in a built-up area with a lot of trees or buildings in the west where the sun goes down to find somewhere with a fairly clear horizon.

He added cloud cover should not be an issue and said we only need the "smallest break" in the clouds to see the display.

Mr Moore also said this extravaganza can be photographed with a camera phone. 

According to Blackrock Castle Observatory in Cork: "Mars is also hanging out below Venus right now, but it is a bit more difficult to see".

Dark sky reserves

It said dark sky reserves are obviously the best spots for a viewing and recommended enthusiasts head for Derrynane in Co Kerry.

It explained Venus "is about 475C on its surface, and its atmosphere is almost 90 times as thick as Earth's".

"So while it is beautiful from here, it is quite a hellish planet."

Mr Moore agrees and does not understand why the planet is named after the Roman goddess of beauty.

Venus is covered in clouds, we thought Ireland was bad, Venus is 100% clouds every day, all year round, never any clear skies. So I don’t know why it was named after the goddess of beauty!

The surface is nearly 500C, an oven can’t get up that high. Lead and tin would melt into liquids on the surface, that’s how bad it is.

“Carbon dioxide is heavier than the air we breathe, so the air pressure is actually 90 times thicker. Even though Venus is the same size as we are, and it has the same gravity, the air is that much heavier it makes the pressure 90 times worse. 

"And those clouds that we can now see in telescopes, they’ve got battery acid in them. Five hundred degree battery acid in the air, what a horrible place to go. It definitely shouldn’t be named after the goddess of beauty, more like a hell," he concluded.