Starting Friday evening and lasting for a few more evenings, humans will have the rare opportunity to view all seven non-Earth planets in the solar system at the same time. The next time such an opportunity will arise won’t be until 2040.
The planets will be formed in what is called a planetary alignment, or “planetary parade.” Normally, such a view is not possible because the orbital period of each planet is different.
“The eight planets in our solar system orbit the sun in roughly the same plane because they all originally formed from the same disc of debris around the sun,” New Scientist explains. “The line the sun traces across the daytime sky – called the ecliptic – aligns with this plane, so when the planets appear in the sky, they all appear roughly along the ecliptic. It isn’t a perfect line of planets, because their orbits are tilted slightly, but it is fairly close.”
The outlet stated that the best time to view the planets is just after sunset. Mars, Jupiter, and Uranus, unlike Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and Neptune will not lie close to the horizon and thus will not disappear as quickly.
“It’s great to see the interest the planetary parade is generating,” Professor David Armstrong of the University of Warwick, U.K., reflected. “Engagement in astronomy, looking up at the sky, and appreciating the wonder of our solar system are all fantastic, and I encourage anyone interested to take the time to step outside and see the planets with their own eyes if they get the chance over the next few days, and a clear sky.”
Ed Krupp, director of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, cautioned that people needed more than the naked eye to see the planets. He asserted that the planets “are always more or less on the same path, and occasionally a few more of them are visible in the night sky. But the general message is that, ‘I will go outside and see these planets strung like pearls across the sky.’ That’s just not the case.”
“If you wanted to see Mercury, you might get lucky around the evening, shortly after the sunset, in the twilight, but only if you knew where to look,” Krupp added. “Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are all up in the sky between the western horizon and a bit overhead to the east.”
“Uranus and Neptune are hard to spot without a telescope, as both planets are blue and orbit in the dim outskirts of the solar system,” The Los Angeles Times noted.
