Fixated on Venus

[sdi]

On the other hand, one may readily see from Venus' orbit how She is associated with beauty:

This lovely lotus-like shape comes from looking at the solar system from above, and drawing a line between the positions of Venus and Terra each day for eight years. It occurs because the ratio between their orbital periods is extremely close—one might say suspiciously close—to 8/13.

Some of my other favorite astronomical coincidences are that Sol and Luna appear the same size as seen from Terra, and that each planet is approximately twice as far from Sol as the last.

Comments

[boccaderlupo]

This really is a lovely form. Pretty awesome.

Thank you for sharing it!

[emmanuelg]

8/13 is an approximation of the Fibonacci or 'Golden' ratio, 1:1.6180339.... which, as I am sure you know, is a proportion that describes curves in nature, from the curvature of the roots of our teeth to the curvature of the spiral arms of the galaxies. A fourth-dimensional version of it also describes the curvature of space-time. The pentagram, which as you have pointed out above, is mapped out by the apparent movement of Venus from Earth, gives the exact Golden Ratio in the ratio of the distance between two adjacent points and the distance from one point to another. Yep, that can't be a coincidence!