I came across something interesting the other day. It turns out that Venus has a forty year cycle that ancient people tracked. As Venus moves through its orbit there is a point where, from our perspective, the planet is as far away from the sun as it can get. This point is known as the greatest eastern elongation or greatest western elongation, depending on whether Venus is the morning star or evening star. If you spent eight years mapping when Venus reached eastern elongation it would form a pentagram, a lopsided pentagram but still a pentagram. If you continued to map Venus' position in the sky for forty years you would find that the pentagram rotates through five cycles (clockwise), returning to its original position. You'll find tonnes of images and videos of this but the majority of them incorrectly use Venusian conjunctions or oppositions. The ancients certainly didn't use conjunction or opposition because neither of those are visible to the naked eye. Some people have suggested that this forty years cycle is where the number forty gained it's mystical significance. (Think of all the times forty is used in the bible) It's hard to know for sure but, hey, it's a reasonable guess. One of the problems with this idea is that, historically, the pentagram has not been associated with the planet Venus.
To see a proper version of what the lopsided pentagram looks like, check out the link below.
To see a proper version of what the lopsided pentagram looks like, check out the link below.
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