CREDIT: EarthSky News

If it ever stops raining in Kane County and the skies are clear, you’ll notice that the planet Venus is at its brightest.

Since Venus is the goddess of love, we could say that love is in the air, but that just has the potential to ignite another bad-’70s-music flashback. All of this is reported in EarthSky News (the sky part, not the ’70s music), which you can check out for your ownself.

The gist of it is that Venus is at its greatest illuminated extent on July 10 at midnight EDT, but on July 9 at 11 p.m. CDT, 10 p.m. MDT or 9 p.m. PDT. That said, it’ll be shining at its brightest best in the evening sky for the next several days.

“Venus reaches its greatest illuminated extent as the evening “star” on July 10, 2015. That means the planet’s daytime side, or illuminated side, is covering more square area of Earth’s sky than at any other time during this current evening apparition of Venus. And it means that Venus is brighter around now than at any other time during its approximate 9.6-month reign in the evening sky. Plus Jupiter – the second-brightest planet – is still near Venus in the west after sunset.

“Amazing evening sky! Watch for these two worlds.”

Best photos: Venus and Jupiter, west after sunset

Why is Venus so bright now? You might think Venus appears most brilliant when we see its disk as most fully illuminated from Earth. Not so. If you were to observe Venus with the telescope at its greatest illuminated extent, you’d see that Venus’s disk is only a touch more than one-quarter illuminated by sunshine.

A full Venus is always on the far side of the sun from us, so its disk size at full phase is always small. It’s only when we see Venus as a crescent that this world comes close enough to us to exhibit its greatest illuminated extent, at which time its daytime side covers the greatest area of sky.

SOURCE: EarthSky News

Venus and Jupiter over western Washington on June 30 by Susan Jensen.