How Far Away is Venus?

Venus is one of the planets which even somebody who isn’t a fan of astrology will remember. It is the second planet in our solar system when you measure them back from the Sun, and the closest planet in our solar system to Earth.

Venus is the brightest planet in the sky, and it is not uncommon for you to be able to see it on a clear night. But how far away is it?

Determining the distance between us and other planets can be just as mind-blowing as it is fascinating, and it can sometimes be difficult to comprehend the distance between us and the planets with which we share the solar system.

With that in mind, let’s take a look and try to answer the question, ‘How far away is Venus?’.

How Far Away is Venus from the Earth?

As we have already established, Venus is the closest planet to Earth in the solar system and it is the planet immediately before the Earth when you list the planets in order from the sun.

But this is not the only reason that Venus is talked about so often. We also discuss Venus a lot because this planet is a similar size to the Earth that we live on, so it is regularly compared by astrologists.

But concerning the distance between the Earth and Venus, there is no straight answer as it is constantly changing. 

The distance between Venus and Earth is always changing as the two planets travel in constant ellipses around the sun. So, on some days Venus will be further away from the Earth than others.

At its furthest distance, you will find a massive 162 million miles between us and Venus. However, during the times that the circuit of the sun that both Venus and the Earth move in tandem, this distance can drop to something as low as 24-25 million miles.

So in short, the distance between Earth and Venus depends on the day that you are looking at it. 

How Far Away is Venus from the Sun?

As you will probably remember from your early days in education, all of the planets in our solar system move in orbit of the sun. All of these planets move in an elliptical orbit which means they all move in a circular pattern but the actual distance impacts the different planets separately.

As we have already established, Venus is one of the closest planets to the sun with only Mercury sitting closer to it. So as you will expect, the distance between Venus and the Sun is significantly less than planets such Neptune and Uranus. 

Just as the distance between the Earth and Venus will change from day to day, so will the distance between the Sun and Venus. The distance will be larger or smaller depending on where Venus currently is in its orbit at the time that you do your research.

However, this variation is much smaller than the variations that you will find between Earth and Venus. On average, there are approximately 67 million miles between Venus and the Sun, and its largest and smallest distance is not significantly bigger than this number. 

It is a common misconception that Venus is the brightest planet in the sky because it is the closest planet to the sun, but this is not the case. Mercury is, of course, the closest planet to the Sun, but Venus is the easiest to observe due to its atmosphere which reflects the sun’s light most successfully. 

Fun Facts about Venus

So let’s take a closer look at venus and what makes it unique to the other planets in our solar system. During the late 16th and early 17th century, Italian astronomer Galileo paid special attention to Venus and was the first person to observe that this planet goes through phases.

Thus far, it was only the moon that had been observed as moving in phases, so this discovery was a game-changer and cemented the argument that the planets orbited the sun and not the Earth as was once thought. But what else is unique about Venus?

Something else that you might not know about Venus is that it is hotter than Mercury even though Mercury is the closest planet to the sun. This is because of the same thing that causes Venus to appear brighter than Mercury, and this thing is, of course, its atmosphere.

The atmosphere of Venus allows it to easily trap heat which can then be seen as the light from a distance, making Venus one of the hottest and brightest planets in our solar system. But that’s enough fun facts, let’s take a look at how long it would take to travel from the Earth to Venus. 

How Long does it take to travel to Venus?

Now that we have established the distance between the Earth and Venus, let’s take a look at how long it takes to travel there. There is a long-distance between the Earth and Venus, and because of this, no manned spacecraft has ever made the journey.

But that doesn’t mean that there has been no travel between the Earth and Venus. Since the 1960s unmanned aircraft have made the journey and sent back valuable information about the planet which has allowed us to develop the vast knowledge of Venus that we have today. 

Three famous journeys have taken place to Venus, the first being in 1962 when NASA’s Mariner 2 made the journey.

It launched during the Summer on August 27th and took 4 months to complete its journey when it flew by Venus on December 14th. This was one of the first journeys to the planet and it still stands as the fastest.

Both the Venera 7 and the Magellan spacecraft have also attempted the journey in later years, but they both fell short of the 4 month market. So it is safe to say that it would take at least 4 months to travel to Venus, but probably more. 

Summary

In short, the distance to Venus changes every single day.

In this guide we’ve looked at the distance between the Earth and Venus, and also the Sun and Venus, to determine how far away this planet actually is.