Like a celestial parade across the cosmos, five bright planets are lighting up the night sky and visible with the naked eye all February long — with two other planets also detectable for skywatchers with special equipment.
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury are all currently visible with the naked eye for skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere. Uranus and Neptune are also part of this month’s planetary showcase but are harder to spot because they require binoculars or a telescope to see.
The bright planets can all be seen through the end of February, but toward the later part of the month, the positions of some planets lower on the horizon will make them more difficult to detect. As such, skywatchers should pick a clear night in the coming weeks to enjoy the celestial spectacle, according to Jackie Faherty, an astronomer and senior research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
“I like to tell people that the nighttime sky is the original Netflix — it’s what people used to do to entertain themselves,” she said.
The best time to see the planets is after dusk on a clear night in a spot that is away from city lights and other forms of light pollution.
Venus is typically the easiest to spot in the southwestern sky because it tends to be the brightest. Saturn can be spotted almost directly below Venus, but the ringed planet will become increasingly harder to see as the month goes on and it sinks lower in the sky each day after sunset. To see Jupiter, look high up in the south at dusk. Mars, meanwhile, will appear about halfway up in the eastern sky. Mercury should also be visible to the naked eye, but it tends to be harder to see because of its proximity to the sun, according to Faherty.
“It’s always so close to the sun, so that light makes it really hard to find,” she said.
By Feb. 24, however, Mercury will be farther away from the sun and thus easier to spot after sunset low in the western sky, near Saturn.
For skywatchers with high-powered binoculars or a telescope, Uranus and Neptune are also findable with some dedication, patience and the help of star charts, Faherty said.
NASA has called this skywatching event a “planet parade.” While they don’t occur every year, the chance to see multiple bright planets at the same time overhead is not particularly rare.
These events occur because all of the planets in the solar system orbit the sun on a relatively flat, disc-shaped plane — akin to cars on a racetrack. Each planet takes a different length of time to orbit the sun: Venus, for instance, completes one orbit in 225 days, while Mercury zips around the star in 88 days and Saturn takes 29.4 years to complete one revolution.
Occasionally, all of the planets will be on the same side of the metaphorical racetrack, spread across the sky much like how cars can be positioned at different points along the same straightaway of a track, Faherty said.
“That’s why you might look for some planets at dusk while some will be setting later, but they’re all across the sky,” she said.
The planet parade will be on display through February, but there will also be other chances to see multiple bright planets in the sky in the coming months and years.
In late August, four planets will be visible at the same time before sunrise, according to NASA. In October 2028, five planets will be on parade before sunrise. And in February 2034, five planets should be visible after sunset.
Faherty said this month’s event is a good way for newcomers to get better acquainted with the cosmos in a way that is both fun and educational.
“The sky is always changing a little bit,” Faherty said. “There’s always going to be something that surprises you.”
This story first appeared on chof360.com. More from NBC News:
