Venuses orbit

Although all planets' orbits are elliptical, Venuses orbit is the closest to circular, with an eccentricity of less than 1%.

As Venus is closer to the Sun than the Earth, it always appears in roughly the same direction from Earth as the Sun (the greatest elongation is 47.8°), so on Earth it can usually only be seen a few hours before sunrise or a few hours after sunset. However, when at its brightest, Venus may be seen during the daytime, making it one of only two heavenly bodies that can be seen both day and night (the other being the Moon). It is sometimes referred to as the "Morning Star" or the "Evening Star", and when it is visible in dark skies it is by far the brightest star-like object in the sky.

The cycle between one maximum elongation and the next lasts 584 days. After these 584 days Venus is visible in a position 72 degrees away from the previous one. Since 5 * 584 = 2920, which is equivalent to 8 * 365 Venus returns to the same point in the sky every 8 years (minus two leap days). This was known as the Sothis cycle in ancient Egypt, and was familiar to the Maya as well. Another association is with the Moon, because 2920 days equal almost exactly 99 lunations (29.5 * 99 = 2920.5).

At inferior conjunction, Venus can get closer to earth than any other planet--little more than 100 times the Moon's average distance. On December 16th, 1850, Venus reached the lowest distance to earth since 1800, with a value of 0,264138541298281 AU = 39514827 kilometres. This will be the closest approach of Venus to earth until December 16th, 2101 when Venus will reach a distance of 0,26431736 AU = 39541578 kilometres to earth.