Another beautiful spectacle in the sky awaits stargazers as five planets prepare to align with each other. In another magnificent planetary parade, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Uranus will come in line later this month. The planets will be in perfect conjunction on March 27. The same night, you can also view a well-known star cluster M35 as well as the moon. However, all five planets might not be clearly visible to everyone.
If you wish to catch the spectacle of five planets coming in line, look towards the western horizon on the night of March 28. You’ll need to steer clear of obstructions that might hinder your view. Those living near the beach with a westward-facing shoreline will probably be able to witness the spectacle best.
The timing will also matter since two of these planets will set soon after sunset. Mercury and Jupiter won’t be visible for very long post-sunset and will set beyond the horizon 25 to 30 minutes later. However, both of them will be shining brightly but can be best viewed using binoculars a few minutes before sunset. Both of them will be closer to the horizon. Mercury will be to the right of Jupiter. While Jupiter will vanish after a few days, Mercury will continue to remain visible.
Meanwhile, Venus is already becoming prominent in the western evening sky and will be the easiest to spot. The brightest planet and Uranus will appear higher up. It will also be the first planet you can see once the sun sets. Mars, which was 50.6 million miles away from Earth on November 30, is 211.4 million kilometres from our planet this time. However, it should still be easily visible in the night sky and will be quite high, near the moon.
Moon will appear as a crescent on this night, while Mars will appear to the moon’s upper left. Uranus will be a pretty hard one to see but binoculars will make it easier.
Five planets aligned a few weeks back as well and the occurrence happened last year as well.
The planetary alignment happens because “the planets orbit around the Sun in approximately the same plane, the ecliptic plane, and thus trace similar paths across our sky,” NASA says.
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