Star*Points for February, 2014 Venus is February?s Morning Star Early risers this month are greeted by the brilliant beacon planet Venus brightly shining in the morning twilight. After a great performance in December?s evening sky, the planet passed through inferior conjunction ? passing between the earth and sun ? in January and is currently entering a morning apparition that will be its best in 2014. With sunrise on the February 2nd ?cross quarter day? (midpoint of winter) occurring at 07:15 a.m. a person doesn?t necessarily have to rise all that early to catch Venus. Venus is so bright that it may still be visible in a clear sky at 07:00 a.m., but try 30 minutes before sunrise just to be certain. The luckiest observers will have a toasty bed located next to window facing south or east that they won?t even have to crawl out of in order to see it. Venus will be the brightest thing in the sky, 20 degrees or higher over the southeastern horizon ? depending on the time of observation. The later you observe the lower Venus is in the sky. For those who do brave the cold and take a telescope outside, Venus will exhibit a small crescent shape reminiscent of the moon. Venus? thick clouds are generally featureless but persistent observers should notice the crescent slowly fattening from day to day until it appears half full in late March. By then Venus will be rising two hours before the sun. Although Venus is one of the five classical planets known since antiquity, Pythagoras is sometimes given at least some credit in its discovery. This is because he deduced that the planets known as the ?morning star? and ?evening star? were one and the same. The ancient Babylonians have also been credited with making this discovery a thousand years earlier. Venus is the second planet from the sun and is therefore much hotter than third planet, earth. How much hotter? Think of an oven boiler and add a few hundred more degrees. Venus? average temperature is around 865øF. The atmospheric pressure on Venus is also a crushing 90 times that of Earth?s. That?s above the operating temperature of most devices which is why Venus is a difficult and harsh environment for visiting spacecraft. Here?s a brief history of landing missions to the surface of Venus. Eight Venus landers from the Soviet Union?s Venera series transmitted data for a combined total of under 10 hours from the planet?s surface. Venera 7 (1970) landed and transmitted a weak signal for 23 minutes. Venera 8 (1972) landed and transmitted for 50 minutes. Veneras 9 and 10 (1975) operated on the surface for 53 and at least 65 minutes, respectively. Veneras 11 and 12 (1978) landed and operated for at least 95 and 110 minutes, respectively. Veneras 13 and 14 (1981) landed and survived for 127 and 57 minutes, respectively. In 1985 two more landers from the Soviet Union touched down on Venus. The redundant Vegas 1 and 2 transmitted data from the surface for 56 and 57 minutes, respectively. No other countries have attempted to soft land spacecraft on Venus.