On perspective

From Northern Idaho News, April 13, 1926

Officers Get Newport Still And Mash

By Sandy Compton Reader Columnist

My brothers and I and our significant others once stood in Grandpa Earl’s east field on a summer night, watching sunset fade away. Hanging in the sky 10 degrees above the horizon was a brilliant, silver-white dot. My sister-in-law asked, “What’s that star?” I answered, “That’s Venus.”

I never forgot what she said to that. With a bit of incredulity in her voice, she said, “You mean, just right over there?”

That caused me to start looking at the sky differently.

Yes. Venus is just right over there — somewhere between 160 million and 26 million miles, depending on its travels around the sun in relation to Earth. As this goes to press, Venus is about 105 million miles away, and recently visible as one of a “convergence” of five planets — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Uranus and Jupiter— and the moon in our evening sky.