If you peer at the sky during a cloudless dawn or dusk, you'd immediately spot Venus. Appearing as a brilliant, steadily shining speck, it's the second-brightest object in the night sky after the moon.
"The planet is about 100 times brighter than a first magnitude star," Anthony Mallama, a researcher at the IAU's Centre for Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky, told Live Science in an email. First magnitude stars are the brightest stars visible in the night sky. For example, when looking at average brightness, the first magnitude star Sirius is at -1.47, and Venus is at -4.14 (on the scale astronomers use, dimmer objects have a more positive magnitude).
