4 hours ago
5
Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will all light up the night sky alongside the Moon during National Astronomy Week from 1-9 February 2025.
Royal Astronomy Society
This week sees a special event for stargazers, as there will be a planet parade in the skies. Four planets plus the moon will be visible in a line, making this a great opportunity for anyone interested in doing some stargazing.
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn will all be visible in the night sky, and the moon will be almost full and passing by each of the planets in turn throughout the week. The event, also known as a planetary alignment, happens when the planets appear by chance in a row. Although there isn’t anything particularly unusual about this happening, it does make for an exceptional time to see multiple planets — even with the naked eye.
“The parade of the planets in 2025 is one of the best line-ups we’ve had for 45 years,” said Robin Scagell, chair of National Astronomy Week, an event planned to coincide with the planet parade. “Not since April 1980, when Mars was close and we could see Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus, has there been such a fantastic opportunity to see half the solar system in all its glory.”
Please enable Javascript to view this content
How many planets will be visible depends on where the planets appear over the horizon, weather conditions, and what equipment you have available. “For most observers to see a planet with the naked eye, it needs to be at least a few degrees above the horizon, and 10 degrees or higher is best,” NASA explains. “This is crucial because Earth’s atmosphere near the ground dims celestial objects as they rise or set.”
Venus and Saturn are typically very bright and easy to spot without any aids, but to get the best view of the other planets you’ll need to have very clear skies or access to binoculars or a telescope. With these aids, you may even be able to see Uranus and Neptune in the night sky as well.
If you can’t get a good view of the planets for yourself, however, then you can still watch the event online. You can tune into the National Astronomy Week livestreams which will include footage of the planets plus expert commentary and astronomy-related activities.
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
How James Webb is peering into galaxies to see stars being born
Recently astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to look at the structures of dust and gas which create stars in nearby galaxies. Now, some of the researchers have shared more about the findings and what they mean for our understanding of how galaxies form and evolve.
The project, called Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby Galaxies, or PHANGS, used James Webb to observe several galaxies which are similar to our own Milky Way to see how stars are forming within them.
Read more
How to see the green comet this week before it leaves us for good
This weekend will see a special visitor to the skies over our planet, as a 50,000-year-old comet will be passing by. Named C/2022 E3 ZTF, this comet appears greenish in the skies due to the chemicals it is composed of, and it will come close enough to the planet that it will be visible using binoculars or a telescope, and may even be visible to the naked eye.
Comet ZTF stuns in this image taken two weeks before its Earth close approach, on 19 January 2023.Look closely, and you’ll spot that comets have two tails, one made of ionized gas and another of dust. As a comet approaches the inner Solar System, solar radiation causes volatile materials within the comet to vaporize into gas and stream out of the nucleus – the comet’s ‘head’ – carrying dust away with them. Oscar Martín (startrails.es)
Read more
How to watch the conjunction of Venus and Saturn online today
With temperatures dropping and winter well set in over much of the Northern Hemisphere, we wouldn't blame you if you didn't fancy sitting outside for an evening of stargazing. However, it would be a shame to miss astronomical events like the close conjunction of Venus and Saturn in the sky tonight.
Venus meets Saturn: a planetary conjunction – live event (22 Jan. 2023)
Read more
)
English (US) ·