It’s hard to miss the planet Venus. Unless the moon is up, this second planet from the sun can be the brightest object in the night sky. Right now, Venus is high in the west as darkness falls. It’s ...

Observing the phases of Venus helped Galileo conclude that planets in our solar system orbit the sun, not the Earth. Credit: Creators.com illustration Ask your friends and neighbors, and most will ...

Happy International Year of Astronomy! Capitalizing on the fact that 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s earliest telescopic forays into the night sky, the International Astronomical Union ...

It was during the early years of the 17th century that the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei turned his new optic tube skyward. While many people believe that Galileo invented the telescope, this ...

Because Venus lies inside Earth’s orbit around the sun, viewing it through a telescope or binoculars can show different phases of the planet. During April, the phase is closer to “full” or a gibbous ...

In this photo taken on Friday, Oct. 21 by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), Venus shines very close to the blazing sun and its plume-like corona, which are hidden by an opaque disk to ...

"Astro" Bob King is a freelance writer for the News Tribune. Read more of his work at astrobob.areavoices.com. Venus reflects in a lake near Duluth, Minn. on May 11 at dusk. The star just above the ...

Venus is currently observable in the early-morning eastern sky, rising around 5 A.M. local daylight time, positioned initially in far eastern Leo before transitioning into western Virgo. Exhibiting a ...

Just as the Perseid meteor shower approaches its peak, two luminous planets are getting in on the night-sky action. Venus and Jupiter, the two brightest planets in the sky, will meet in a conjunction ...