Astronomers in Europe observed Venus as early as the 17th century. In that century, as in the next eighteenth, scientists saw a large celestial body near Venus, which they took for its natural satellite.
Among these astronomers were the famous Francesco Fontana, as well as Giovanni Domenico Cassini, the director of the Paris Observatory, who made many discoveries concerning the solar system and space in general. Its 150x - the most powerful telescope at the time - also showed the satellite of Venus. Moreover, Cassini, like many of his colleagues, believed that theoretically the planets located between the Sun and the Earth should not have satellites. And, nevertheless, near Venus they saw such an object - large in the form of a sickle.
In the 18th century, the famous creator of astronomical instruments, James Short, also recorded a satellite near Venus, which, according to him, was slightly less than one-third the diameter of the planet itself. True, on the next favorable days of observing Venus, no matter how hard he tried, he could not find this mysterious satellite. However, twenty years later, namely in 1761, when Venus passed along the disk of the Sun and attention to it for this reason was intensified, and literally from the side of all astronomers of the Earth, the Venus moon was seen at least two dozen times.
This was confirmed even by such an eminent scientist as Jacques Montaigne from Limoges, who, by the way, was the most ardent skeptic in this regard, the spanking himself did not see the mysterious satellite of Venus. Later, even the Prussian king Frederick the Great proposed to name the satellite of Venus in honor of the mathematician and astronomer Jean Leron d'Alembert, but the modest scientist refused such an honor.
And only in the 19th century, the satellite of Venus received a name in honor of the ancient Egyptian goddess of hunting and war Neith, which was invented for her by the Belgian astronomer Jean Charles Ozot - this happened in 1878. However, Nate herself has not been observed for a long time. Why? This was a real mystery for the scientific world.
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If not a satellite, then what?
Subsequently, space probes sent to the morning star confirmed that Venus does not have a satellite. Moreover, he simply could not disappear without a trace: astronomers of past centuries characterized him as too big. Such an object should either leave an asteroid ring around its native planet, if it collapsed, or fall on it and upset the balance of its "mother", leaving monstrous rifts on the planet. The probes did not find any of this.
The famous scientist-theosophist Charles Leadbeater in his book "Inner Life" (published in 1911) argued that the satellites of any planet disappear when the humanoid race inhabiting it finally reaches the "seventh circle of rebirth". The disappearance of the moon Neith means, in his opinion, only one thing: the Venusians, far ahead of earthlings in their development, have already reached this "seventh circle". Such perfection is still awaiting us, but when we reach it, the Moon will cease to shine over the blue planet.
In 1919, scientist Charles Hoy Fort suggested that astronomers of the 17th and 18th centuries mistook alien spaceships that orbited the planet for a satellite of Venus. A more reasonable explanation for the appearance and disappearance of the satellite of Venus has not yet been found …