Venus crescent phase about one month before or after inferior conjunction. Venus fades to about magnitude −3 when it is backlit by the Sun. The planet is bright enough to be seen in a clear midday sky and is more easily visible when the Sun is low on the horizon or setting. As an inferior planet, it always lies within about 47° of the Sun. Venus "overtakes" Earth every 584 days as it orbits the Sun. As it does so, it changes from the "Evening Star", visible after sunset, to the "Morning Star", visible before sunrise. Although Mercury, the other inferior
Solar System other bodies orbiting the Sun. The principal component of the Solar System is the Sun, a G2 main-sequence star that contains 99.86% of the system's known mass and dominates it gravitationally. The Sun's four largest orbiting bodies, the giant planets, account for 99% of the remaining mass, with Jupiter and Saturn together comprising more than 90%. The remaining objects of the Solar System (including the four terrestrial planets, the dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, and comets) together comprise less than 0.002% of the Solar System's total mass. Most large objects in orbit around the Sun lie near the plane of Earth's