Hello everyone,
I am doing a science/art project, part of teacher’s college. I am suppose to share a scientific related experience through the expression of art, so I plan to do some graffiti art of the representation. However, I never understood scientifically how this is possible.
For example, during around this time of year, I believe North East to the sun there should be a “star” around sunrise. This star is in fact mercury. I need to explain how this is even possible. I am not a science major, so if some can explain how this is possible please help me out.
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You can see the moon with the naked eye, because it’s 3,600 km in diameter and about 385,000 km from the Earth.
Venus’s closest approach to the Earth is 61,000,000 km, so that’s about 200 times further than the moon, but it’s also 12,000 km in diameter (or 4 times the size of the moon.) So yes, it’s a lot further away than the moon, but it’s also bigger than the moon.
The other planets reflect sunlight, just as the Moon does. This makes them bright, and a bright object, even if it’s so far away that it’s just a point of light, stands out really well in the sky as long as the Sun isn’t on the same side of the horizon.
Mercury and Venus are closer to the Sun than Earth is, so they are “inner” or “inferior” planets. They will always appear to us to be close to the Sun, so we only really see them just before sunrise or just after sunset. Venus is called the “morning star” or “evening star” for this reason. Whether it is “morning” or “evening” depends on where in its orbit it is; this is the same for Mercury, and you mentioned “around this time of year” but neither Mercury or Venus care what time of year it is on Earth, because their orbits don’t have anything to do with our year.
Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (and Uranus and Neptune, but those are too dim to easily see) are farther from the Sun than Earth, so they are “outer” or “superior” planets. We can sometimes see them “close” to the Sun if their orbits have taken them opposite the Sun as Earth, but normally when we see them we are between them and the Sun so they show up at night.
Night after night, planets wander in their position. Stars stay static over a person’s lifetime. You don’t need a telescope to tell you that these wandering stars are different.
Art wise, you may also want to consider that planets “shine” and stars “twinkle” in our night sky.
aside from their size, there is extreme contrast between a planet reflecting sunlight and the black of empty space. you can see a light shining in the dark from miles away, and when the light is the size of a planet, you can see it from millions of miles away.
Because planets are what people in science call quite big.
And in astronomical terms they’re very close to earth.
I’m curious as to what exactly is confusing you here?
Ultimately, you can see them because they are up there and nothing is between you and them.
As long as there is ample light and nothing in the way then object that is visible (providing it’s large enough).
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