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Seven planets in thesolar system — Mercury , Venus , Mars , Jupiter , Saturn , Uranus and Neptune — will line up in the night sky Friday ( Feb. 28 ) in an unbelievably rare " wandering parade . "
Although most of these planets have beenvisible in the night sky since January , Mercury will be joining the procession for just a few days , before Saturn gets lose in the sundown ’s limelight in early March .
An artist’s illustration of the solar system’s planets in alignment.
Five of these worlds will be easy seeable to the unaided center , but you will need a skilful telescope to see the full show , according to NASA .
That ’s because at least two of the planet — Uranus and Neptune — will be too dim to see with the naked middle and will in all likelihood be masked by the spotlight of the set sun at twilight , NASAsaid . Saturnwill also be trickier to see in some localisation due to its position close to the visible horizon .
If you have agood telescopeto take hold of the full display , the best time to view all seven planet in the Northern Hemisphere will be after sunset on Friday ( Feb. 28 ) at around 8:30 p.m. local time , grant toSkyatNightMagazine .
Related : Have all 8 planets ever aline ?
Planetary conjunctions occur when two or more planet appear to be cheeseparing together in the sky . Of naturally , this is only from our position on Earth ; in realness , the planetsremain extremely far apart .
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junction happen because the planets of thesolar systemorbit the Dominicus along rough the same flat plane as Earth , and they on occasion coordinate when their different orbital distances and speeds bring them into a bunch on Earth ’s nightside .
These conjunctions are n’t rare , but they do get rarer with each major planet added to the chain of mountains . The three innermost satellite — Mercury , Venus and Earth — align within 3.6 degrees in the skyevery 39.6 years . For all of thesolar organisation ’s eight planets to align that closely , it would take 396 billion twelvemonth — something that has never happened and wo n’t happen before the sunlight becomes a red hulk , consuming Mercury , Venus and likely Earth in the process .
We recommendTime and DateandStellariumas two great online tools for finding viewing dates and multiplication ground on where you are in the world . On mobile phone , Sky Tonightis a costless app that will do the same job .
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