Check out this week! FIVE planets will be visible in the night sky Tuesday evening – so see Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, Uranus and Mars
- On March 28th, a major planetary alignment will be visible to stargazers on Earth
- While it is not uncommon to see two or three planets in a line, it is rather uncommon
- For the best view of the five planets on Tuesday, it’s best to escape the city
Astronomy enthusiasts will have the chance to see a rare planetary parade on Tuesday, in which five planets from the solar system align.
Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury and Uranus should be visible just after sunset on March 28 as they line up in the night sky.
Venus and Jupiter should be the most visible from the UK, while faint Mercury, Uranus and Mars might be a bit more difficult to spot.
According to Professor Beth Biller of the University of Edinburgh, your exact location in the country is “not critical” to seeing the planets.
But she confirmed that escaping city life is the best option for a clearer view as urban areas are more affected by light pollution.
She told Web: “The exact UK location is unlikely to be critical. It’s more important to be out of town and somewhere with a good view of the horizon.”
On March 28th, a major planetary constellation of Jupiter, Mercury, Uranus, Mars and Venus will be visible to stargazers on Earth
How to find good spots for stargazing
A planetary parade occurs when multiple planets are in the same constellation.
While it is not uncommon to see two or three planets in the sky, an alignment of five is less common.
It happened last year and before that both 2020 and 2016.
Professor Biller added: “Venus and Jupiter are both very bright and easy to spot and you may have seen them close together in the past few weeks.
“Mars is a bit fainter but still visible to the naked eye. Mercury is getting difficult – you need to be in a dark place with a clear view of the horizon if you want to see Mercury.’
Some planets could also be difficult to spot from the US, according to Rick Fienberg, senior editor at Sky & Telescope.
“Unless you have clear skies and an almost flat western horizon with no obstructions like trees or buildings, you won’t see Jupiter and Mercury,” he told FOX 35.
While special equipment may be required to spot Uranus, Mr. Fienberg claimed that the five planets should be visible with binoculars.
However, skywatchers need not worry if they miss the spectacle – a number of other planetary alignments will take place this year (stock image)
However, skywatchers need not worry if they miss the spectacle – a number of other planetary alignments will take place this year.
Less than a month later, Mercury, Uranus, Venus and Mars are expected to align again in a 35 degree sector of the sky.
Then, on April 24th, there will be a 40 degree sector where Mars, Venus, Uranus and Mercury will congregate.
Last year, stargazers in the northern hemisphere had the amazing opportunity to gaze at Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn all at once.
To easily identify the planets this month, the Star Walk astronomy education app recommends using the Sky Tonight app, which can be pointed at the night sky to give a live view of what’s going on.
The planets are expected to align in a 50-degree sector of the sky, meaning they will appear closer together from Earth in a small area above.
This visual phenomenon is distinct from an astronomical alignment, which refers to when planets converge simultaneously on the same side of the sun.
DOES THE ALIGNMENT OF THE PLANETS AFFECT EARTH?
The planets in our solar system never line up in a perfectly straight line as shown in the movies.
If you look at a two-dimensional representation of the planets and their orbits on a piece of paper, you might think that all the planets will eventually orbit on the same line.
In reality, the planets don’t all orbit perfectly in the same plane. Instead, they swing around in three-dimensional space on different orbits. Because of this, they will never be perfectly aligned.
The planetary alignment depends on your point of view. If three planets are in the same region of sky as seen from Earth, they are not necessarily in the same region of sky as seen from Sun.
Alignment is therefore an artifact of a point of view and nothing fundamental about the planets themselves.
Even if the planets all aligned in a perfectly straight line, it would have negligible effects on Earth.
Fictional and pseudoscientific authors like to claim that a planetary alignment would mean all the planets’ gravitational fields add up into something massive that disrupts life on Earth.
In truth, the gravitational pulls of the planets on Earth are so weak that they have no significant effect on life on Earth.
There are only two objects in the solar system with sufficient gravity to significantly affect Earth: the moon and the sun.
The sun’s gravity is strong because the sun is so massive. The moon’s gravitational pull on Earth is strong because the moon is so close.
The Sun’s gravity causes the Earth’s annual orbit and hence, combined with the Earth’s tilt, causes the seasons.
The moon’s gravity is primarily responsible for the daily ocean tides. The close alignment of the Sun and Moon affects Earth because its gravitational fields are so strong.
This partial alignment occurs at each full moon and new moon and results in particularly strong tides called “spring tides.”
The word ‘spring’ here refers to the fact that the water seems to rush up the coast every two weeks with the particularly strong tides – not that they only occur in the spring season.
Source: dr Christopher S. Baird/West Texas A&M University