Astronomy

Venus revolves around the sun 13 times in almost exactly the same time it takes the Earth to revolve around the sun 8 times. In other words, 13 Venus years equals 8 Earth years.     If you connect the positions of the Earth to the positions of Venus every two weeks or so, you get the “string art” pattern shown here. In his book A Little Book of Coincidence , John Martineau calls it “the perfect beauty of Venus.”   If, instead, you put the Earth at the center of the solar system and plot the path of Venus relative to Earth for 8 years, then you get the second pattern shown to the right. Venus's orbit is also inclined slightly to that of the Earth, so when it comes between us and the sun (5 times every 8 years), it usually passes just to the north or south of the sun. However, because the pattern described above is not quite perfect, the situation slowly but surely changes over time. As a result, Venus comes directly between us and the the sun every 105 years, and again 8 y...