Morning Star
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What is the "Morning Star"?
The ancient Greeks popularly identified a morning star, Eosphorus, and an evening star, Hesperus; both would appear periodically in the morning or evening sky, respectively, and both were extremely bright (brighter than anything else in the sky, other than the Sun and the Moon).
Greek astronomers observed these "stars" to appear and disappear from the twilight skies periodically, but both could never be seen at the same time of year. They correctly identified these objects not as two stars, but rather as a single planet, which we know today as Venus.
As Earth and Venus orbit the Sun, all three bodies constantly change positions relative to each other, causing Venus to appear alternately to the east or the west of the Sun; alternately in the early evening or early morning skies.
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2012
