Star Chart

The planets Venus, named after the Roman goddess of love, and Mars, named after the Roman god of war, are both making a close approach to each other in the early evening Butler sky as spring ends and summer 2023 begins.

A popular book published in the early ’90s, "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus" by Dr. John Gray, describes how far apart men and women can be when it comes to developing and maintaining relationships. Sometimes worlds apart!

The planets Venus and Mars are physically about as far apart as possible in their orbits around the sun. However, because they're nearly in the same line of sight, they are drawing closer and closer to each other in our sky.

You can't miss Venus in the evening twilight of the low western sky, shining brightly because it's getting so close to Earth this month, about 60 million miles away. It's also brilliant because it's entirely shrouded with a thick and very reflective cloud cover that bounces quite a bit of sunshine our way.

What's known about the surface of Venus comes mostly from radar studies. It looks so peaceful in the low western sky, but it's really the hellhole of the solar system!

That thick atmosphere surrounding it is poisonous, and because it's laced with carbon dioxide, Venus experiences a runaway greenhouse effect that builds up incredible heat. How about 900 degrees in the shade?

Also, the atmospheric pressure is 90 times that of the Earth. Even if you can take the heat on Venus, the atmospheric pressure would be so immense it would crush you.

Oh, and there's one more thing — occasional sulfuric acid rain showers. I'd leave Venus out of your travel plans!

Mars is much fainter than Venus mainly because it's much farther away, more than 196 million miles.

Mars and Earth were much closer to each other last December, less than 51 million miles apart, and Mars was so bright in the heavens.

Even though Mars is much fainter now, it's easy to find because it's only about 5 degrees to the upper left of Venus, and that's nearly half the width of your fist held at arm's length.

On June 30, Love and War will be closest to each other, just under 4 degrees apart. Formally, this is called a conjunction, but I prefer to call it a celestial tango.

Between now and the end of the month, you'll also observe that the "odd couple" of planets will start the evening lower and lower in the western sky. By around the Fourth of July, they'll be lost in the evening twilight.

As an added attraction this week, Venus will pass in front of the far distant "Behive" star cluster, a large group of relatively young stars more than 600 light-years away. Just one light-year equals nearly 6 trillion miles.

It should be a cool sight with even a small telescope or a decent pair of binoculars, best seen in the darker sky after twilight. Later on this month, on June 21, the first night of summer, the new crescent moon will form a triangle with Venus and Mars.

Since Venus is shrouded by a very dense atmosphere, there isn't much to see with a telescope on Venus itself, except that Venus goes through phases just like our moon.

That's because its orbit around the sun lies within Earth's orbit, and the angle between the Earth, Venus, and the sun constantly changes. Venus resembles a crescent moon right now, and the crescent will get thinner and thinner toward the end of June.

To be perfectly honest, Mars is a dud through any size telescope this month because it's so far away. About all you'll see is an orange-red dot. The next close approach Mars will make to the Earth will be in January 2025, but it will be worth the wait.

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and retired broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is the author of "Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations," published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and adventurepublications.net. Contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.