The story of the sun, moon, and stars . enus travel roundthe sun—as do all the planets—in the same as Venuss pathway is shorter than ours, and asher speed is greater, she is much the quickest abouther yearly journey, and she overtakes us again andagain at different points of our orbit in turn. At one timeshe comes be-tween us andthe sun. Thatis her nearestposition to us,and she is thenonly abouttwenty-five mill- PHASES OF VENVS. iotlS of DlileS dis- tant. A beautiful sight she would be, but unfortu-nately her bright side is entirely turned away, andonly her dark side is turned to
The story of the sun, moon, and stars . enus travel roundthe sun—as do all the planets—in the same as Venuss pathway is shorter than ours, and asher speed is greater, she is much the quickest abouther yearly journey, and she overtakes us again andagain at different points of our orbit in turn. At one timeshe comes be-tween us andthe sun. Thatis her nearestposition to us,and she is thenonly abouttwenty-five mill- PHASES OF VENVS. iotlS of DlileS dis- tant. A beautiful sight she would be, but unfortu-nately her bright side is entirely turned away, andonly her dark side is turned towards us. So then sheis new Venus, and is invisible. At another time she is completely beyond the sun,and at her farthest position away from us. Her shin-ing is quite lost in the suns rays coming though we get a good view of her as full Ve-nus, at a little to one side or the other, yet so greatis her distance—as much as one hundred and fifty-seven millions of miles—that her size and brightnessare very much MERCURY, VENUS, AND MARS. 187 Between these two nearest and farthest points, sheoccupies two middle distances, one on each side ofthe sun. Then, like the moon at her quarters, sheturns to us only half of her bright side. But this isthe best view of Venus that we have, as a brilliant,untwinkling, starlike form,—the Evening Star of an-cients and of poets. Between these four leading posi-tions Venus is always traveling gradually from one toanother—always either waxing or waning in size andin brightness. Mercury passes through the sameseeming changes. Inhabitants of Venus must have a glorious view ofthe earth, with her attendant moon. For just at thetime when the two planets are nearest together, andwhen she is only new Venus to us, a dark and in-visible body, the earth is full earth to Venus. Thevery best sight we ever have of Venus can not comenear that sight. But if Mercury and Venus really areso often covered with heavy clouds as astronomers
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidstor, booksubjectastronomy
