Venus: Difference between revisions

The Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, believed to have been compiled around the mid-seventeenth century BCE, shows the Babylonians understood the two were a single object, referred to in the tablet as the "bright queen of the sky", and could support this view with detailed observations. The Ancient Greeks thought of the two as separate stars, Phosphorus and Hesperus. Pliny the Elder credited the realization that they were a single object to Pythagoras in the sixth century BCE, while Diogenes Laertius argued that Parmenides was probably responsible. The ancient Chinese referred to the morning Venus as "the Great White" (Tai-bai 太白) or "the Opener (Starter) of Brightness" (Qi-ming 啟明), and the evening Venus as "the Excellent West One" (Chang-geng 長庚). The Romans designated the morning aspect of Venus as Lucifer, literally "Light-Bringer", and the evening aspect as Vesper, both literal translations of the respective Greek names.