Planetary Parade Visible Over U.S. Today
Skywatchers are running out of time to see an amazing event! Seven planets will be visible in the evening sky. Will Mother Nature cooperate and limit cloud cover?
Seven planets – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – will all be briefly visible in the evening sky today. This phenomenon is known as a “planetary parade.” The planets in our solar system orbit the Sun within roughly the same flat plane as the Earth. As they orbit at different speeds and distances from the Sun, there are moments when they appear to line up from Earth’s perspective, although the planets remain separated by vast differences in space.
The last time the seven planets aligned was April 8, 2024. While this is not exceeding rare, the next occurrence will not happen until 2040!
The best chance to see as many planets as possible will be just briefly after sunset this evening. As the Sun sets, Saturn and Mercury will also be setting, making them particularly difficult to see. So, there will be only a few minutes after sunset to catch all seven of them before they drop below the horizon.
Four of the planets – Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Mars – will be visible to the naked eye. Venus and Jupiter will be the easiest to spot due to their brightness, while Mars will have a distinct reddish hue. Saturn will be harder to see because it will be low in the horizon. Binoculars or a telescope will likely be needed to spot the other two planets – Uranus and Neptune. Uranus has a faint greenish glow and can be sometimes seen without optical air under dark skies. Neptune requires a telescope to distinguish its distant blue disk.
If you are wanting to check out this “planetary parade,” head to a location with a clear view of the horizon and minimal light pollution. If you were to just pop outside, it will take time to adjust to the light levels. Give it a bit of time as it takes your eyes about half an hour to fully adjust. Avoid looking at your phone, get comfortable and ensure you have an unobstructed view of the horizon.
Try to find Venus, the brightest and most conspicuous of the planets in the west-southwest sky. From there, you can trace a gentle arc along the ecliptic, or the line or place that all the planets trace through the sky, to locate the other planets. Jupiter will be high in the South, Mars will blaze in the east near the Gemini twins, and Mercury and Saturn will require a clear, unobstructed view of the horizon.
So, will the weather behave?
Across the Ohio Valley, Northeast, and northern Mid-Atlantic, there will be plenty of cloud cover overhead. Southern California and parts of the Northwest and northern Plains will also have to deal with scattered clouds.
Most of the rest of the U.S. will be clear or mostly clear this evening, offering an ideal view of the night skies!
Credit: NASA, BBC, Space.com
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Image: People look up to the sky from an observatory near the village of Avren, Bulgaria, Aug. 12, 2009. (AP Photo/Petar Petrov, File)
