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 | 16h56m40s | 24°21'S | Ophiuchus | 14.0" |
| Sun | 14h23m | 14°14'S | Libra | 32'13" |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
From Fairfield, Venus will become visible at around 18:07 (EST), 12° above your south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. It will then sink towards the horizon, setting 1 hour and 49 minutes after the Sun at 19:38.
The sky on 31 Oct 2016
| The sky on 31 October 2016 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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1% 1 day 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
| 26 Oct 2015 | – Venus at greatest elongation west |
| 12 Jan 2017 | – Venus at greatest elongation east |
| 03 Feb 2017 | – Venus at highest altitude in evening sky |
| 03 Jun 2017 | – Venus at greatest elongation west |
Image credit
© NASA/Ricardo Nunes