A parade of planets marches through the night sky

The sharp skywatcher may already have seen the impressive lines of the planet across the night sky in January. Mercury will join the queue this week. Now, all the other worlds in our solar system will be visible among the stars at the same time, if you know where to look.

According to Gerald Van Bell, director of science at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, the seven planets' integrity is neither mystical nor particularly rare.

“On the scale of an asteroid that died from a supermoon, this is more like a supermoon,” Dr. Van Bell said. Still, as the event was colloquially named, the planetary parade “is a very wonderful excuse to go out at night, maybe drink wine and enjoy the night sky.”

Why are the planets all here?

Whenever planets appear in the night sky, they always appear along the same line. This path, known as the ecliptic, is the same as the sun travels during the day.

This happens because planets orbit around the sun on the same plane. Dr. Van Bell likened the composition to a vinyl record. The sun is in the center, and the groove is the orbit of the planets around it.

Our perspective from the earth, he said, “sees along the platter,” along one of those grooves. This week, the planets are configured to exist in the dusk sky from almost anywhere on Earth.

Around the end of the moon, Saturn slides into the daytime sky below the horizon, ending the 7-planet parade. But the Stargazers will have another chance to see planetary alignment in August, when some of our heavenly neighbours become visible in the morning sky.

How can I watch the parade?

Only a handful of planets can be seen by poor eyes, and the best night to catch them all may vary from place to place. Astronomers recommend using software programs such as Stellarium to know when and where to look.

To see the parade, find a dark spot with a clear view of the western horizon at dusk. Mercury and Saturn are lowered in the sky, passing each other in the glow of the sun's decline in the evening, making it difficult to find a pair.

Follow that ray high and find Venus, the most spectacular planet in the sky.

“We've been working hard to get the better of our lives,” said Thomas Wilmitch, director of the planetarium at Illinois State University. “You may be in haze under the street lights, and to the west is Venus, shining like a beacon.”

Even higher, almost directly above the head, Jupiter is Jupiter, sparkling by about a tenth of Venus' brightness.

The series of planets end in the eastern sky on Mars, and are easily identifiable due to their pinkish tone. The planet will appear larger than normal within weeks of its close encounter with Earth. Wilmitch said this proximity casts the Red Planet in a slightly golden shade.

The other two planets are too far away that you wouldn't see without binoculars or telescopes. Uranus is about two fists west of Jupiter, Wilmitch said, but Neptune is hidden between Venus and the western horizon.

But even if you can't catch them all, Wilmitch recommended layering up and looking up anyway. “The sky is really beautiful in winter,” he said. “It's the perfect time to go outside and dig into the stars.”