Venus at Maximum Brightness

Author: Anonymous1
URL: http://member.telpacific.com.au/cragwolf

March 4, 2006

Abstract
In this article we investigate the appearance of Venus in the night sky. In particular, we calculate
the distance, elongation and phase of Venus at maximum brightness. The only empirical data
we use are the relative distances of Venus and Earth from the Sun. We assume for the sake of
simplicity that the planetary orbits are perfectly circular, concentric and coplanar.

Figure 1: Venus, as seen by the Galileo probe

1 The author hides behind a mask of anonymity due to a mixture of shame, cowardice, and modesty.

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1 Preliminaries

Figure 2: Mars at opposition

For planets whose orbits are exterior to the orbit of the Earth (e.g. Mars, Jupiter), maximum
brightness (as viewed from the Earth) occurs at opposition, when the planet simultaneously presents
a fully illuminated disk and is closest to the Earth, as shown in Figure 2.
In contrast, for planets whose orbits are interior to the orbit of the Earth (e.g. Mercury, Venus),
the happy coincidence of a fully illuminated disk and closest proximity to the Earth never occurs,
and it is therefore not a trivial task to determine the exact point at which they attain maximum
brightness. The difficulty lies in finding a relationship between the two factors that together deter-
mine the brightness of a planet: the fraction of the planet’s disk that is illuminated by the Sun; and
the distance of the planet from the Earth. Once this relationship has been found, the problem then
reduces to the relatively simple chore of finding the stationary point of a single-variable function.
Let us now see how this precisely comes about for the case of the planet Venus.

2 The phase of Venus

As an interior planet (see Figure 3), Venus completes one orbit of the Sun in a shorter time than
the Earth does. The ratio of the orbital periods of the two planets can be determined by Kepler’s

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Third Law, which states that the square of the orbital period, T , of a planet is proportional to the
cube of its semi-major axis, a. For the case of Venus ♀ and Earth ⊕ we find that
3/2 3/2
T♀ /T⊕ = a♀ /a⊕ = 0.72333/2 = 0.6151

Figure 3: The orbit of Venus

This implies that the elongation of Venus from the Sun (i.e. the angular separation of Venus and
the Sun as measured from the Earth) will vary with time from zero to some maximum elongation.
Thus Venus will present to us a phase (similar to the lunar phase) that will also vary with time.
The precise appearance of the phase of Venus, or in other words the fraction of the disk of Venus
illuminated by the Sun, will depend on the angle defined by the three points, Sun-Venus-Earth, as
shown in Figure 4. We denote this angle as θ, and the radius of Venus as r.
We can quickly tell from Figure 4 that, for example, when θ = 0, the disk is 100% illuminated,
when θ = π/2, the disk is 50% illuminated, and when θ = π, the disk is 0% illuminated. What
we want to find out is exactly how this quantity—the fraction of the disk illuminated (from the
perspective of Earth observers)—varies with θ.
The terminator of Venus defines the boundary between the lit and unlit portions of the planet, or
in other words, the line between day and night; it can be thought of as a circle whose centre coincides
with the centre of Venus, and whose plane is perpendicular to the vector that stretches from the
centre of Venus to the centre of the Sun. Let us call the disk defined by this circle the terminator
disk ; and let us call the disk of Venus potentially visible to observers on Earth the observable disk.
The projection of the terminator disk on the observable disk in the plane of the observable disk
defines what portion of the observable disk is visible to observers on the Earth. To be more precise,
the lit portion of the observable disk is made up of half the observable disk plus half the projection
of the terminator disk on the observable disk. Hence, the fraction of the observable disk that is lit,
denoted by fL , is given by:
1 + cos θ
fL = (1)
2

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 Figure 4: The phase of Venus

Another way to think about it is by carrying out the following experiment. Take a piece of white
paper and cut out a circle with a radius of roughly 7 cm. Take the paper circle, and colour one side
of it black. Now fold it in half, with the uncoloured (i.e. white) side of the circle on the inside of
the fold. Lay the folded circle on a table, preferably a black table; this simulates the “new moon”
phase. Now slowly start unfolding the circle, making sure to keep the bottom half fully in contact
with the table. As you unfold the circle, you will see a gradually widening crescent of white. When
you have unfolded the top half of the circle by ninety degrees, half the white side is visible; this
simulates the “half moon” phase. Finally, when you have unfolded the circle fully, all of the white
side is visible; this simulates the “full moon” phase.

3 The distance of Venus

As Venus orbits the Sun, its distance to the Earth will vary. The geometry of the situation is shown
in Figure 5. Let x be the distance from the Earth to the Sun, y the distance from Venus to the Sun,
d the distance from Venus to the Earth, θ the angle we dealt with in the previous section, and φ
the elongation of Venus (i.e. its angular separation from the Sun as viewed from the Earth). These
quantities will relate to each other via the well-known law of cosines, which gives us

x2 = y 2 + d2 − 2yd cos θ (2)

This is a quadratic equation in d whose solution is
p
d = y cos θ + y 2 cos2 θ + x2 − y 2 (3)
For later reference we can rewrite (2) as

y 2 + d2 − x2
cos θ = (4)
2yd

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 Figure 5: The distance of Venus

4 The brightness of Venus

The apparent brightness of Venus, denoted by L♀ , depends on both the distance, d, of Venus from
the Earth and the fraction of the observable disk that is illuminated, fL . How exactly does it depend
on d? Radiation degrades in intensity as the inverse square of distance from the source, which gives
us a factor of 1/d2 . Therefore, L♀ must be proportional to fL /d2 which from (1) can be written as
1 + cos θ
L♀ ∝
d2
which, using (4), can be further reduced to

1 1 x2 − y 2
L♀ ∝ + 2−
2yd d 2yd3
So our job then is to find the stationary points2 of the function

1 1 x2 − y 2
g(d) = + 2−
2yd d 2yd3
which, if you observe closely, has the form

g(z) = Az + Bz 2 − Cz 3 (5)
2 2
where A = 1/2y, B = 1, C = (x − y )/2y, and z = 1/d. Since it is much simpler, we will stick with
the form of the function g in (5).
To find the value of z for which the function g(z) is a maximum, we take the derivative of g(z)
with respect to z, set the result equal to zero, and then solve for z. So we have
dg
= A + 2Bz − 3Cz 2 = 0
dz
2 To be precise, we are looking for the stationary point at which the function g attains a maximum.

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which is another quadratic equation whose only meaningful (i.e. positive) solution is
√
B + B 2 + 3AC
z0 =
3C
Recalling the definitions of A, B, C and z, we have


3 x2 − y 2
d0 = p
2y + 3x2 + y 2
whichpcan be further simplified by multiplying both the denominator and numerator by the factor,
2y − 3x2 − y 2 , yielding
p
d0 = 3x2 + y 2 − 2y (6)
Substituting known astronomical constants [1] into (6) we find that Venus attains maximum bright-
ness when it is 0.4304 astronomical units, or 64.39 million kilometres, from the Earth.
The elongation of Venus is found by applying the law of cosines again, yielding

x2 + d20 − y 2
cos φ0 = (7)
2xd0
Substituting known astronomical constants into (7) we find that Venus attains maximum brightness
when its elongation is 39◦ 430 2400 . From (1) and (4) we find that the fraction of Venus’ disk that is
illuminated is 0.2658. So, surprisingly perhaps, only a little over a quarter of the disk of Venus is
illuminated when it attains maximum brightness as seen from Earth.

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References
[1] D. R. Williams, Venus Fact Sheet (National Space Science Data Center, NASA, 2005)
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/venusfact.html