Venus's 225-day orbit around the Sun will carry it to its furthest point to the Sun – its aphelion – at a distance of 0.73 AU.
In practice, however, Venus's orbit is very close to circular; its distance from the Sun varies by only about 1.5% between perihelion and aphelion. This makes Venus's orbit more perfectly circular than that of any of the Solar System's other planets. As a result, its surface receives almost exactly the same amount of energy from the Sun at perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) and aphelion (furthest recess from the Sun).
The position of Venus at the moment it passes aphelion will be:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Angular Size |
| Venus | 13h38m50s | 14°14'S | Virgo | 30.4" |
| Sun | 10h59m | 6°28'N | Leo | 31'43" |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
From Cambridge, Venus will be difficult to observe as it will appear no higher than 9° above the horizon. It will become visible at around 19:28 (EDT), 9° above your south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. It will then sink towards the horizon, setting 1 hour and 19 minutes after the Sun at 20:29.
The sky on 6 May 2024
| The sky on 6 May 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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2% 28 days old |
All times shown in EDT.
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Source
The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.
Related news
| 19 Aug 2010 | – Venus at greatest elongation east |
| 15 Dec 2010 | – Venus at highest altitude in morning sky |
| 08 Jan 2011 | – Venus at greatest elongation west |
| 26 Mar 2012 | – Venus at greatest elongation east |
Image credit
© NASA/Ricardo Nunes