Next week, sky-gazers will have a chance to see six planets at the same time as they line up in the morning sky, forming what is known as a “parade” of planets.
Star Walk, an app developed by Vito Technology, said in a Wednesday X post that this alignment of Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune will pop up during the early morning hours Tuesday. However, it also noted that some members of the planet parade will be harder to see than others.
“The easiest objects for observation will be Saturn, visible from late night in Aquarius, and reddish Mars in Pisces,” it explained. “Neptune will also be in Pisces but will require binoculars with good magnification to see. At dawn, Uranus, Jupiter, and Mercury will appear on the eastern horizon in Taurus.”
While Jupiter and Mercury might be visible to naked eye, their closeness to the Sun could make it hard for people here on Earth to see them. Uranus will definitely require binoculars to view from our planet.
Still, seeing this number of planets together is a rare treat.
“It’s not uncommon for several planets to be in the sky at once, but it’s less common for more planets to align. Any number of planets from three to eight constitutes an alignment,” said ScienceAlert of the celestial event. “Five or six planets assembling is known as a large alignment, but five-planet alignments are significantly more frequent than six.”
According to EarthSky, those who are particularly eager to catch a glimpse of the parade can start looking on Friday. That’s when a “thick crescent moon near golden Saturn,” will appear.
“On each of the following mornings, you can watch as the moon’s crescent grows slimmer and it drops closer to the horizon, passing the planets in turn,” it explained. By June 3 and June 4, sky-gazers will be able to use the moon to guide them to the planet lineup.
ScienceAlert explained that the planets won’t actually be lined up the way one might see in a diagram. Instead, they appear in a line because they will be on the same side of the sun as they move along their orbits, which lay in a flat plane around the sun called the ecliptic.
“This is because of the way stars form, including the Sun. A baby star in a cloud of material starts spinning; the cloud around them swirls into a disk that feeds into the baby star. A planet forms from what remains of the disk and, if left to its own devices, will stay in that level position,” said the outlet.