Venus is the second brightest object in the solar system, and is often called ‘morning star’ for this reason. Named for the goddess of love in Roman mythology, Venus boasts a bold colour palette, full of flaming red and orange hues – colours of passion and beauty. It is said that the Romans named the planet after one of their most prominent gods because it was the brightest of all the planets, and it’s the only planet named after a female. We’ve captured Venus’s natural allure and scaled it down to fit our globes. Venus may have been named after the most beautiful deity of the pantheon because it shone the brightest among the five planets known to ancient astronomers.

In ancient times, Venus was often thought to be two different stars, the evening star and the morning star — that is, the ones that first appeared at sunset and sunrise. In Latin, they were respectively known as Vesper and Lucifer. In Christian times, Lucifer, or “light-bringer,” became known as the name of Satan before his fall. However, further observations of Venus in the space age show a very hellish environment. This makes Venus a very difficult planet to observe from up close, because spacecraft do not survive long on its surface.