Venus's 225-day orbit around the Sun will carry it to its closest point to the Sun – its perihelion – at a distance of 0.72 AU from the Sun.

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 perihelion will be:

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

From Fairfield, Venus will be difficult to observe as it will appear no higher than 8° above the horizon. It will be visible in the dawn sky, rising at 05:16 (EDT) – 1 hour and 5 minutes before the Sun – and reaching an altitude of 8° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 06:04.

The sky on 8 May 2024

Warning

Never attempt to point a pair of binoculars or a telescope at an object close to the Sun. Doing so may result in immediate and permanent blindness.

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.

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Image credit

© NASA/Ricardo Nunes

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