A day on Venus is longer than its year
always near the Sun) hold no matter when the reel is watched. The original time-indexed apparition claim is excluded below.
Sources
A. Venus takes 243 Earth days to rotate once (sidereal day).
NASA — https://science.nasa.gov/venus/venus-facts/ (fetched 2026-07-22):
"your 'day' would be 243 Earth days long — longer even than a Venus year
(one trip around the Sun), which takes only 225 Earth days."
Astronomy.com — https://www.astronomy.com/science/the-length-of-a-day-on-venus-keeps-changing/
(fetched 2026-07-22): "On Venus, a day lasts about 243 Earth-days. That's
longer than it takes the planet to complete an orbit around the Sun."
B. Venus orbits the Sun in ~225 Earth days.
NASA (same quote as A: "only 225 Earth days").
Astronomy.com (same article): "a Venusian year actually spans just 225 Earth-days."
Corroborating: The Planetary Society — https://www.planetary.org/worlds/venus
(fetched 2026-07-22): solar year "225 Earth days".
**C. Venus is the brightest starlike object in the sky — the third-brightest
natural object after the Sun and Moon (~mag −4), brighter than any star.**
EarthSky — https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/why-is-venus-so-bright/
(fetched 2026-07-26): "the third-brightest natural object in the sky, after
the sun and the moon"; "generally shining at around magnitude -4.0."
WorldAtlas — https://www.worldatlas.com/space/what-s-the-brightest-object-in-the-sky.html
(fetched 2026-07-26): "Venus can reach about magnitude -4.9, making it the
brightest planet and usually the brightest natural object in the night sky
after the Moon." (Sirius, the brightest star, is only −1.46.)
**D. Venus never appears more than ~45–47° from the Sun, so it is only ever a
morning/evening object low near the horizon — never high at midnight.**
Wikipedia, "Elongation (astronomy)" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elongation_(astronomy)
(fetched 2026-07-26): "the maximum elongation (east or west) ... for Venus is
between 45° and 47°"; "When an inferior planet is visible after sunset, it is
near its greatest eastern elongation. When an inferior planet is visible before
sunrise, it is near its greatest western elongation."
EarthSky — https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/greatest-elongation-definition-venus-mercury/
(fetched 2026-07-26): "the farthest from the sun that Venus can ever appear on
the sky's dome is about 47.3 degrees"; evening object sets in the west after
the sun, morning object rises in the east before the sun.
What we refused to claim
Time-contingent (the timelessness gate): the late-July-2026 evening
apparition — "Venus is the bright evening star, west after sunset, this week."
Verified true 2026-07-22 (Astronomy.com July-2026 guide + EarthSky), but true
only *then*. A viewer months later looks west and sees nothing → broken handoff.
Excluded. The evergreen core that ships instead: Venus is the brightest starlike
point (C) and never leaves the Sun's vicinity (D), so the action is conditioned
on a recurring moment ("next clear evening or dawn, if one point outshines all
the rest"), never on a date.
The 117 Earth days figure: NASA's fact page calls it "sunrise to sunset";
The Planetary Society lists it as the full solar day (sunrise to sunrise,
~116.8 d is the standard value). Conflict unresolved at popular-source level →
the number stays OUT of the script. Three-valued discipline: uncertain does
not ship.
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