Goddess of beauty; its sign [Symbol], a mirror.
DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 66,750,000 MILES. DIAMETER, 7660 MILES.
ORBITAL VELOCITY, 1296 MILES PER MINUTE. AXIAL REVOLUTION, 23H.
21M. ORBITAL REVOLUTION, 224.7 DAYS.
This brilliant planet is often visible in the daytime. I was once
delighted by seeing Venus looking down, a little after mid-day
through the open space in the dome of the Pantheon at Rome. It
has never since seemed to me as if the home of all the gods was
deserted. Phoebus, Diana, Venus and the rest, thronged through
that open upper door at noon of night or day. Arago relates that
Bonaparte, upon repairing to Luxemburg when the Directory was about
to give him a _fête_, was much surprised at seeing the multitude
paying more attention to the heavens above the palace than to him
or his brilliant staff. Upon inquiry, he learned that these curious
persons were observing with astonishment a star which they supposed
to be that of the conqueror of Italy. The emperor himself was not
indifferent when [Page 140] his piercing eye caught the clear lustre
of Venus smiling upon him at mid-day.
This unusual brightness occurs when Venus is about five weeks before
or after her inferior conjunction, and also nearest overhead by
being north of the sun. This last circumstance occurs once in eight
years, and came on February 16th, 1878.
Venus may be as near the earth as 22,000,000 miles, and as far
away as 160,000,000. This variation of its distances from the earth
is obviously much greater than that of Mercury, and its consequent
apparent size much more changeable. Its greatest and least apparent
sizes are as ten and sixty-five (Fig. 53).
[Illustration: Fig. 53.--Phases of Venus, and Varions Apparent
Dimensions.]
When Copernicus announced the true theory of the solar system, he
said that if the inferior planets could be clearly seen they would
show phases like the moon. When Galileo turned the little telescope
he had made on Venus, he confirmed the prophecy of Copernicus.
Desiring to take time for more extended observation, and still be
able to assert the priority of his discovery, he published the
following anagram, in which his discovery was contained:
[Page 141]
"Hæc immatura a me jam frustra leguntur o. y."
(These unripe things are now vainly gathered by me.)
He first saw Venus as gibbous; a few months revealed it as crescent,
and then he transposed his anagram into:
"Cynthiæ figuras æmulatur mater amorum."
(The mother of loves imitates the phases of Cynthia.)
Many things that were once supposed to be known concerning Venus are
not confirmed by later and better observations. Venus is surrounded
by an atmosphere so dense with clouds that it is conceded that
her time of rotation and the inclination of her axis cannot be
determined. She revealed one of the grandest secrets of the universe
to the first seeker; showed her highest beauty to her first ardent
lover, and has veiled herself from the prying eyes of later comers.
Florence has built a kind of shrine for the telescope of Galileo.
By it he discovered the phases of Venus, the spots on the sun,
the mountains of the moon, the satellites of Jupiter, and some
irregularities of shape in Saturn, caused by its rings. Galileo
subsequently became blind, but he had used his eyes to the best
purpose of any man in his generation.