Skywatchers await this month’s cosmic treat: a rare alignment of the four planets in the pre-dawn sky.
Starting around Sunday morning, stargazers will be able to see Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn appear in a straight line across the southeastern sky before sunrise. The mid-moon alignment is a relatively unusual opportunity for people to see the many planets in the sky with the naked eye – a precursor to the rare planetary alignment that will occur this summer.
To see the quartet of planets, northern hemisphere skywatchers must get out about an hour before sunrise and look southeast, toward sunrise.
Looking east on a flat horizon, Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Saturn will appear ‘pointed in a line across the morning sky’ According to NASA. If conditions were clear, the four planets would be bright enough to be seen with the naked eye, without the aid of binoculars or telescopes.
same harmony It can be seen before sunrise in the southern hemisphere. There, the Sun’s path in the sky is at a steeper angle to the horizon, compared to the Northern Hemisphere, meaning that the series of planets will spread out above the point of sunrise.
Either way, Jupiter will be the second brightest planet in the celestial pool, but it will appear lowest on the horizon, which can make it difficult to spot. That will change as the moon goes on, according to NASA.
“As we approach the last week of April, Jupiter will be high enough above the horizon in the hours before sunrise to facilitate its observations,” the space agency said in its message. Tips for Watching the Monthly Sky.
Although this lunar skywatching event makes it appear like the planets form an elegant line in space, it’s really just a matter of perspective. Every planet in the solar system revolves around the sun in the same plane, meaning that when each oscillates in its orbit sometimes, they appear to form a straight line across Earth’s sky. However, this regular mode will look very different from other observation points in space.
The planets will be visible in the sky before dawn throughout the month, and the April alignment will set the stage for more exciting sky-viewing events this summer.
From late June to early July, the five planets — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn — will be visible in the sky before sunrise in a grand alignment that only occurs every few years.
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