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A rarified and stunning photo recently captured a " parade of planets , " in which six planet in oursolar systemappeared together in the predawn sky .
The image shows Mercury , Mars , Jupiter , Saturn , Uranus and Neptune in alignment . Marsand Saturn are clearly visible near a crescent moon , while the position of the continue major planet , which were too remote to be seen with the naked eye , were revealed by two composite long exposures .
The composite image shows the planetary parade, along with the moon, during the early hours of June 1.
AstrophotographerJosh Durycaptured the planetary parade on June 1 in the early hours of the morning from The Mendip Hills — a cooking stove of limestone hills in the county of Somerset in the U.K. on June 1 .
The annotated simulacrum showsMarsand Saturn understandably visible near a crescent lunar month , while the positions of the remaining planets ( too distant to be seen with the naked optic but faintly seeable in the image ) were bring out by two composite long photo .
" I conceive no better than to climb Crooks Peak at the unearthly hour of 2 am , " Dury narrate Live Science via email . " As time pass , it was a really limited experience . Being able to see one planet after another rising and being present in my images was fantastic and really encapsulated a sense of linear perspective of our place within thesolar organization , let alone the universe . "
Dury’s un-annotated, long-exposure image shows the parade of planets rise into the pre-dawn sky.
connect : Have all 8 planet ever aligned ?
Planetary conjunction occur when two or more planets appear to be close together in the sky . Of naturally , this is only from our position of the macrocosm on Earth — in reality the planetsremain exceedingly far apart .
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These conjunctions are n’t rare , but they do get rarer with each major planet added to the chain . The three innermost planets — Mercury , Venus and Earth — align within 3.6 degrees in the skyevery 39.6 year . For all of the solar system ’s eight planets to align as closely , it would take 396 billion years — something that has never happened and wo n’t happen before the sun becomes a red giant , consuming Mercury , Venus and likely Earth in the physical process , Live Science antecedently report .
If you ’d like to see a world-wide alliance for yourself , Time and DateandStellariumare two great online tools for finding viewing dates and time based on where you are in the world .