Ever looked at the night sky and wondered if there’s a secret rhythm to the chaos? There is. Astronomers and backyard stargazers call it the Kiss of Venus. It sounds poetic, maybe a little romantic, but it’s actually a mind-blowing display of orbital mechanics that creates a literal flower in space.
Basically, when we talk about the Kiss of Venus, we’re talking about the moment Venus passes between the Earth and the Sun. Scientists call this an inferior conjunction. But it’s the repetition of these moments that gets weird. Because of the specific speeds at which Earth and Venus travel around the Sun, they meet up in almost the exact same spots over an eight-year cycle. If you trace the lines connecting the two planets over those eight years, you don't get a messy scribble. You get a perfect, five-petaled rose.
It’s called the Pentagram of Venus. Honestly, it looks like something drawn with a Spirograph from the 90s.
The Math Behind the Magic
Let’s get into the weeds for a second. Earth takes 365.25 days to orbit the Sun. Venus, being closer to the heat, zips around in about 224.7 days. Now, if you do the math—and people like Johannes Kepler spent a lot of time doing exactly this—you’ll find a resonance. For every eight orbits the Earth completes, Venus completes almost exactly thirteen.
8:13. It’s a near-perfect ratio.
Because of this 1.625 ratio, the "kiss"—that point of closest approach—happens five times every eight years. Each time it happens, it shifts just a tiny bit, about two degrees. This means the "rose" isn't static; it slowly rotates through the zodiac over centuries. It takes about 251 years for the pattern to complete a full rotation and start over from the same spot.
Why We Call It a Kiss
When Venus makes its closest approach to Earth, it’s only about 25 million miles away. That’s a "kiss" in cosmic terms. During this phase, Venus disappears from the evening sky (where it’s the "Evening Star") and reappears a few days later in the morning sky (the "Morning Star").
🔗 Read more: EU DMA Enforcement News Today: Why the "Consent or Pay" Wars Are Just Getting Started
Ancient civilizations weren't stupid. They saw this.
The Maya, specifically, were obsessed. In the Dresden Codex, they tracked the cycles of Venus with terrifying accuracy. They didn't see it as a romantic kiss, though. To them, it was often a sign of war or big political shifts. They timed battles based on where Venus was in its cycle. They understood the 584-day synodic period—the time it takes for Venus to return to the same position relative to the Sun as seen from Earth—way before Europeans were even thinking about telescopes.
The 2026 Connection and Beyond
We just had a major series of these events. If you remember back to June 2020, Venus passed directly across the sun's path from our perspective. While a full "transit" (where you can see the black dot of Venus moving across the Sun) is super rare—the next one isn't until 2117—the regular "kiss" happens much more frequently.
We are currently in the middle of a cycle that will culminate in a significant alignment in 2028.
Here is what’s actually happening during these dates:
The planets don't just sit there. They tug on each other. While Venus is roughly the same size as Earth, its gravitational pull during the Kiss of Venus is enough to cause tiny perturbations in Earth’s orbit. It’s not going to pull us into the Sun, obviously, but it’s a reminder that the solar system is a linked web, not just a bunch of rocks floating in isolation.
Common Misconceptions About the Pentagram
People love to get "woo-woo" with this. You've probably seen those viral TikToks claiming the Kiss of Venus is going to fix your love life or bring world peace.
💡 You might also like: Apple Watch Digital Face: Why Your Screen Layout Is Probably Killing Your Battery (And How To Fix It)
Let's be real: it won't.
Gravity doesn't care about your dating app matches.
The "Pentagram" isn't a perfect geometric shape with straight lines, either. Because planetary orbits are elliptical (oval-shaped) and not perfect circles, the "petals" of the Venus rose are slightly lopsided. One petal might be a bit fatter than the others. It’s a natural, slightly messy beauty, not a computer-generated vector file.
Another thing? People often confuse the "Kiss" with a transit. A transit is when Venus goes exactly in front of the Sun. That only happens in pairs, eight years apart, roughly every century. The "Kiss" (conjunction) happens every 1.6 years. Every transit is a kiss, but not every kiss is a transit.
How to See It Yourself
You don't need a PhD or a billion-dollar rover to experience this. You just need a clear horizon and a stargazing app like Stellarium or SkyGuide.
When Venus is approaching its "kiss" with Earth, it becomes the brightest object in the sky after the Moon. It gets so bright it can actually cast a faint shadow in extremely dark areas. Astronomers call this "Venusian shadow."
📖 Related: TV Wall Mounts 75 Inch: What Most People Get Wrong Before Drilling
Look for it in the west just after sunset. Over a few weeks, you'll notice it getting lower and lower toward the horizon. Then, it vanishes. It’s "kissing" the Sun. A week or so later, wake up early and look east. There it is again.
Why This Matters for Modern Tech
It’s not just for poets. NASA and the ESA (European Space Agency) use these alignments for gravity assists. When we sent the Parker Solar Probe to touch the Sun, we used Venus.
By timing the "kiss" correctly, spacecraft can steal a little bit of orbital momentum from Venus to change their speed without burning extra fuel. We are basically using the Kiss of Venus as a cosmic slingshot. Without this specific 8:13 resonance, our exploration of the inner solar system would be way more expensive and way slower.
Actionable Steps for the Next Cycle
If you want to track the current Pentagram of Venus yourself, here is how to get started without getting overwhelmed by the math.
- Download a Tracking App: Use an app that allows you to "time travel." Set the date forward by 584 days at a time. Watch where Venus lands relative to the constellations.
- Mark Your Calendar: The next inferior conjunction (the "Kiss") is roughly 1.6 years from the last one. Note the constellation it occurs in. You’ll see that after five of these, you’ve made a full circuit around the sky, hitting five distinct points.
- Observation Gear: You don't need a telescope, but a pair of 10x50 binoculars will let you see the phases of Venus. Just like the Moon, Venus has crescents. As it gets closer to the "kiss," the crescent gets thinner and larger.
- Photography: If you have a DSLR or even a high-end smartphone on a tripod, take a photo of Venus once a week at the exact same time after sunset. Over a few months, you’ll see the "descent" toward the Sun.
The Kiss of Venus is a rare bridge between ancient mythology, hardcore physics, and visual art. It reminds us that the universe isn't just random—it has a beat. And once you see the pattern, you can't unsee it. It makes the night sky feel a lot less like a void and a lot more like a clock.
To see the current phase of the Venus cycle, check the latest ephemeris data from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They provide real-time coordinates that show exactly how close we are to the next alignment. Setting up a long-term photography project to capture all five points of the pentagram over the next eight years is one of the most rewarding challenges for any amateur astronomer.