Venus Returns as the Evening Star

Venus Comes Back from Behind the Sun

Venus has been out of sight for the past couple of months. Why? The planet has been passing behind the Sun, making it unobservable to skywatchers on Earth.

Now, Venus is making its comeback.

From around now until March 2025, depending on the latitude of your town or city, Venus will shine brightly in the evening twilight sky. Every night, it will sink slowly toward the western horizon after sunset, tagging along behind the Sun.

For the duration of this roughly eight-month period—which is part of a cycle that repeats every 19 months or so—Venus is affectionately known as the evening star.

Visibility Depends on Latitude

The date around which Venus starts to become visible after sunset depends on your latitude, which is your distance north or south from the equator.

Show Venus on our Night Sky Map for your city

Observers in the Southern Hemisphere and the tropics are the first to see the re-emergence of Venus. From these latitudes, the evening star is already visible, close to the horizon.

Farther north, around the latitude of New York, Madrid, and Beijing, Venus becomes noticeable toward the end of July.

Towns and cities that are very far north—for example, Anchorage in Alaska, or Oslo in Norway—will have to wait until around November for their first sight of the evening star.

Venus on the Inside Track

Because it is closer, Venus orbits the Sun more quickly than Earth: a Venusian year is only 224.7 Earth days long.

As Venus re-appears in our evening sky, the situation in space is that the Earth-Venus distance is decreasing. As the two planets orbit the Sun, Venus is racing up toward Earth in its shorter, faster inside lane.

Track the distances of the planets from Earth

On June 4, 2024, Venus was at superior conjunction, meaning it was on the opposite side of the Sun to Earth.

Around eight months from now—on March 23, 2025—Venus will be at inferior conjunction. This means it will sweep past Earth on its inside track around the Sun.

In between these two dates, as Venus ‘catches up’ to Earth, the planet lies to the east of the Sun as seen in our skies. As a result, it appears to follow the Sun as the two bodies cross the sky every day from east to west.

Venus will reach its farthest distance from the Sun in the evening sky, which astronomers call its greatest elongation east, on January 10, 2025.

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Earth’s Non-Identical Twin

In many ways, Venus is Earth’s twin: it is a similarly sized rocky planet with an iron core.

Compare the sizes of the planets

But there are many differences, too. For example, Venus does not produce its own magnetic field, and it doesn’t have any moons.

Also, our near neighbor is the hottest planet in the solar system—the average surface temperature on Venus is around 480°C (900°F), as opposed to roughly 15°C (60°F) on Earth. In addition, the atmospheric pressure is about 90 times greater.

The surface of Venus is hidden beneath thick white clouds of sulfuric acid. These clouds reflect sunlight strongly, which is why the planet shines so brightly.

As seen from Earth, only two astronomical objects appear brighter than Venus: the Sun and the Moon. (The Moon’s rocky surface doesn’t reflect sunlight as strongly as Venus’s dense atmosphere, but the Moon is much closer to us.)

What’s Next for Venus

After sweeping past Earth at inferior conjunction in March 2025, Venus will pull ahead as the two planets continue around the Sun.

In the months that follow, Venus will appear in our skies to the west of the Sun. It will rise above the eastern horizon ahead of the Sun, and shine as the morning star.

Jump to June 2025 on our Night Sky Map

Eventually, on January 6, 2026, the planet will once again reach superior conjunction, and be hidden from view as it passes once more behind the Sun.

The entire cycle of events from one superior conjunction to the next lasts around 583.9 days, or just over 19 months.

Hidden patterns of Venus’s movement