Planetary Parade Visible Over U.S. This Week
Skywatchers are in for a treat this week! Seven planets will be visible in the evening sky over the next few days. Will Mother Nature cooperate and limit cloud cover? Or will clouds cover this celestial event?
Seven planets – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – will all be briefly visible in the evening sky this week. 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 through Friday. 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 Mid-Atlantic, there will be plenty of cloud cover overhead this evening. Unfortunately, this is probably the best evening out of the next few days to see it here. Two more weather systems will create very cloudy, overcast skies on Thursday and Friday.
For the Southeast, Deep South and southern Plains, significant cloud cover will occur on Thursday evening, so make sure to head out this evening or on Friday.
The Northwest, Four Corners states, northern Plains and Midwest could have problematic viewing this evening due to lots of mid- to high-level clouds. Otherwise, it will be smooth sailing on Thursday and Friday.
Expect some cloud cover in southern California on Thursday. However, there should be no concern this evening or on Friday.
The best spots over the next few days will be the Great Basin, Rockies and High Plains. There should be very little to no cloud cover here, with no major obstruction expected.
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)