Want some ideas to help your kids learn about the planet Venus, and have some fun too?
Let your kids see Venus with their own eyes.
You might not realize, but Venus is the brightest object in the sky (after the Sun and the Moon). In fact, when the Moon isn’t up, Venus can get so bright that it actually casts shadows. It’s very easy to take your kids out on a night when Venus is up, and point it out to them. You’ve probably seen it many times, and didn’t realize that’s what you were looking at.
To find Venus, you need to look to the West in the afternoon, after the Sun has gone down. Or to the East, in the morning before the Sun is coming up. Our What’s Up series of articles here on Universe Today will mention when any of the major planets are high and bright in the sky.
See Venus in a telescope
Once you look through Venus with a telescope, you’ll be seeing the same sign Galileo first saw. Instead of being a bright circle, Venus actually goes through phases, like the Moon. Sometimes, Venus looks almost full, and other times it’s a thin crescent. You might also be surprised to know that Venus is brightest when it’s a thin crescent because that’s when it’s closest to Earth.
Almost any small telescope will work. You can even see the crescent shape in many binoculars, it’s just small.
Learn about the greenhouse effect
The temperatures on Venus are so hot because the thick carbon dioxide on Venus traps heat under the clouds. A similar situation happens when you keep your car in the sun with the windows rolled up. Light from the Sun comes through the windows and heats up the interior of the car. This heat is emitted by the car, but it’s infrared, so gets trapped by the glass. This is why a car heats up, and that’s why Venus is so hot: the heat can’t escape.
Build a scale model of the Solar System
You can build a scale model of the Solar System. We’ve got instructions here on Universe Today, as well as sizes and distances for the Sun and all the planets.
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