Now You Can See Five Planets At Once With The Naked Eye

Till mid-February, early risers will see the first five-planet alignment in a decade
 

BY MOHIT YADAV 

 

 

Positions Of The Planets Before Sunrise

Early-morning stargazers will catch sight of the five naked-eye planets strung in a line across the heavens. This view shows the sky at 6:45 a.m. from Atlanta on January 20, but the planets will be visible from just about anywhere, and will grace the morning sky for a month.


Starting tomorrow morning, all five* visible planets will shine down from the sky in the morning twilight. Head out about an hour before sunrise, and look toward the southeast.

The four bright ones—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus—are pretty easy to spot, if you’ve got a star chart in hand. Venus, for example, will be the brightest thing up there (apart from the moon). Mercury is a little trickier, because it’s easily lost in the light of the soon-to-rise sun.

What makes all five visible at once? It happens because of the planets’ positions along their orbits. At the moment, these five all happen to lie to the right of the sun, when viewed from above the solar system. That means, as the earth spins, they’re all visible in the sky just before sunrise. You can think if it as a line of six, with Jupiter the first to rise and the sun rising last—and marking the end of the morning stargazing session.

stargazing session.