Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 146, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1911 — Venus an Interesting Study. [ARTICLE]

Venus an Interesting Study.

“Canals on Mars” and the possibility of it being inhabited by a race of men with which we one day may establish a sign language fades in Interest when jjpmpared with some recent observations as to the brilliant planet Venus. Venus is 25,000,000 miles nearer the sun than is the earth, and it makes its revolution around the sun in about 225 days. One of the chief difficulties which the astronomer encounters in viewing Venus is that brilliancy which makes Venus so attractive as a morning or evening “star.” But it seems to be established that, like the moon to the earth, Venus presents always the same face to the sun in making its orbit It is so immeasurably nearer the sun than is the earth that, presenting this one surface always sunward, it is figured that the sunlit face of the planet is a parched, lifeless plain subject to dust stroms, while in its shadow is a wilderness of mountainous ice and snow, with a temperature possibly at an absolute zero.