Planetary Parade: Five planets line up with Moon in night sky in rare cosmic event
-
Hashim Sheikh
- . March 29, 2023
- . Update: March 29, 2023 4:44 pm
In one of the rarest cosmic events, often termed ‘a planetary parade’, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Uranus, and Mars aligned with the Moon forming an arc across the evening sky on Monday, with some celestial bodies clearly visible to the naked eye.
The alignment was visible after sunset in the west, and clear skies and a good view of the horizon at some places raised the chances of spotting the phenomenon. In a rare planetary conjunction last summer, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mercury came together.
The best way to spot Monday’s planetary parade was to get away from also sorts of bright city lights and travel to someplace with a clear, unobstructed view. You needed to start observing early in the evening as both Jupiter and Mercury disappeared in no time over the horizon.
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Clear skies in the northern parts of Scotland and its islands provided some of the best views. Prof Catherine Heymans, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, described observing the clear night sky from Edinburgh’s Portobello beach with scores of planetary parade enthusiasts as a delightful experience.
According to astronomer Jake Foster from Royal Observatory Greenwich, such cosmic events were very particular to our perspective from planet Earth. “The planets aren’t aligned right now … but just from our perspective, every once in a while they get close enough to each other … that we’re able to see quite a few at once.”
