Check tomorrow! FIVE planets will align in the morning sky, giving amateur astronomers a rare chance to see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn
- Five planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will align in the morning sky
- They are lined up in order of their distance from the Sun and are visible to the naked eye
- Since December 2004, five of them can be seen from Great Britain in this way for the first time
- The “Planet Parade” begins tomorrow and will continue throughout the month of June
Early risers are in for a rare treat tomorrow when five planets align in special ways for the first time in 18 years.
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn line up in order of their distance from the Sun as seen from the northern hemisphere and are all visible at the same time at dawn.
It is not uncommon to see two or three planets close together, but this is the first time since December 2004 that five of them can be observed from the UK in this particular alignment.
The “Planet Parade” will make Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn visible to the unaided eye in the southeast sky before sunrise.
Spectacular spectacle: Early risers can look forward to a rare treat starting tomorrow when five planets visible to the naked eye collide in a special way for the first time in 18 years. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn line up in order of their distance from the Sun (shown in the chart above).
WHEN DO THE FIVE PLANETS APPEAR OVER THE HORIZON?
When the show starts tomorrow (June 3), Mercury will be at its faintest and fairly close to the horizon before disappearing in the glow of sunrise, but it will become easier to spot as the month progresses.
The planets will rise above the horizon at the following times:
Saturn: 01:30 CET
March: 02:45 CET
Jupiter: 02:45 CET
Venus: 04:00 CET
Mercury: 04:30 CET
When the show starts tomorrow (June 3), Mercury will be at its faintest and fairly close to the horizon before disappearing in the glow of sunrise, but it will become easier to spot as the month progresses.
dr Greg Brown, the public astronomy officer at the Royal Museums Greenwich, said of all the planets, Venus and Jupiter are the easiest to catch a glimpse of.
Venus will appear above the horizon from around 0400 BST and Mars and Jupiter at around 0245 BST.
Saturn, rising above the horizon from around 01:30 BST, along with Mars will be difficult to see at dusk, while Mercury will be the hardest to spot, as it doesn’t rise until around 04:30 BST and is close to the horizon remains .
“Your only chance of seeing all five planets at once is through a very narrow window, after Mercury has risen but before the Sun has risen,” Brown told the Guardian.
“For the fainter planets, binoculars or a telescope can be enough to get past the twilight, but be very careful when attempting to observe Mercury in particular this way.
“Make sure the sun is below the horizon so you don’t accidentally look directly at it, which would be very dangerous for your eyes.”
The five worlds will shine in a row because they all travel on the plane of the solar system known as the ecliptic.
One of the best days to try to spot the alignment is June 24, when a crescent moon will be visible between Venus and Mars (see chart above).
They won’t be as close as it seems, however, since each planet is millions of kilometers from the others.
During June, Jupiter will separate from Mars and Saturn will move even further along the arc.
One of the best days to try to spot the alignment is June 24th when a crescent moon will be visible between Venus and Mars
It will act as a proxy for Earth in the representation of the first five planets from the Sun.
Professor Beth Biller, Personal Chair in Exoplanet Characterization at the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Astronomy, told MailOnline: “This is an exciting opportunity for early risers to see all five planets with the naked eye at once – most of the time they are split between the early hours of the morning and evening sky.’
dr Samantha Rolfe, the senior technical fellow at the University of Hertfordshire Observatory, suggested using the Stellarium app to find Mercury in the morning sky.
Amateur astronomers don’t need binoculars or a telescope if they don’t have one, she said, before adding, ‘Check the weather forecast for clear or even partially clear skies and set an alarm — it’ll be worth getting up for.’
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 pseudo-scientific 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