Missed the ‘Parade of Planets’? These Upcoming Alignments Will Likely Be Better, Anyway

Six planets—Jupiter, Mercury, Uranus, Mars, Neptune and Saturn, in that order—created a diagonal line across the dawn-lit sky from our terrestrial vantage point this morning, a spectacle that’s been referred to as a “planetary parade.”

While the event made headlines, astronomers were quick to temper sky watchers’ expectations. For one, the lining-up was just based on our perspective from Earth, rather than the planets’ actual placement in the three-dimensional solar system.

“Physically, there’s no actual alignment happening,” Kate Pattle, an astrophysicist at University College London, tells CNN’s Jacopo Prisco. “It’s just that most of the planets are more or less on the same side of the sun at the moment. If the planets actually aligned with each other in space, that would be called a syzygy, and that’s a much, much rarer event.”

What’s more, only Saturn and Mars were actually visible to the naked eye Monday morning. NASA warned sky watchers in advance: “Jupiter and Mercury will be at or below the horizon in morning twilight and not visible; Uranus and Neptune are far too faint to see without a telescope, especially as the morning sky brightens.” In fact, Neptune, the farthest planet from the sun, is never visible to the naked eye.

All told, even some astronomers opted to skip this week’s lackluster alignment. “I’m not going to lie,” Ed Bloomer, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich in England, told the Guardian’s Nicola Davis last week, “I’m probably going to be asleep.”

If you want to try and catch these planets lined up, they could still be visible Tuesday morning, and early on Wednesday is likely the last possible time to view them, write EarthSky’s Kelly Kizer Whitt and Deborah Byrd.

Even as this parade fizzles, astronomers say the planets will come together in other exciting alignments in the near future. In just a few weeks’ time, for example, Saturn, the moon, Mars and Jupiter will line up diagonally across the morning sky on June 29. The timing of this event is also more amenable to viewing: It falls on a Friday night into a Saturday morning, as opposed to a Sunday night into a Monday morning. And the arrangement will persist into July.

“If you’re patient and you wait until the end of the month, these planets will move farther away from the sun higher up in the early morning sky,” Andrew Fazekas, communications manager for Astronomers Without Borders, tells USA Today’s Julia Gomez. “You will get an easier chance to pick them out in the sky.”

In both this coming August and January, these same six planets are expected to align again in morning skies, albeit in slightly different orders. Then, in February, Venus will join the crowd, marking the first time seven planets will align in the sky since this past April’s total solar eclipse, according to the Democrat and Chronicle’s Steve Howe.

And here’s another, for those with a little more patience: On September 8, 2040, the five planets visible to the naked eye—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn—along with a crescent moon, will align in the evening sky.

Christian Thorsberg | READ MORE

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.