The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

This is how you can see the alignment of five planets with the naked eye, just before each sunrise

2022-06-24T17:18:48.764Z


Tonight on June 24, in addition, the Moon will be between Venus and Mars Tonight, three-quarters of an hour or an hour before sunrise, five planets of the solar system can be observed, without the need for a telescope: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. In May you could already see four of them and this month Mercury has joined. On the morning of the 24th, a new protagonist will be incorporated into this image: the Moon will be located between Venus and Mars, ac


Tonight, three-quarters of an hour or an hour before sunrise, five planets of the solar system can be observed, without the need for a telescope: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

In May you could already see four of them and this month Mercury has joined.

On the morning of the 24th, a new protagonist will be incorporated into this image: the Moon will be located between Venus and Mars, according to Mario Tafalla, a member of the National Astronomical Observatory.

This alignment of planets had not occurred since December 2004, although they were a little more separated from each other than on this occasion, Tafalla details.

Although the average years between each event of this type is 57 years, it will happen again in September 2040, NASA calculates.

“What is curious about it is that if you look from east to west, they are aligned in the same order as they are in distance from the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and finally Saturn.

They are perfectly aligned or almost aligned in the sky and also ordered by distance from the Sun”, comments Tafalla.

The ideal place to see it is a horizon, without trees or buildings ahead and, above all, that there is darkness.

The planet with the most difficulties to recognize is Mercury, because it is very close to the Sun, and the brightest is Venus, she points out.

Javier Armentia, astrophysicist and director of the Pamplona Planetarium, explains the tricks to be able to correctly identify the planets and not confuse them with stars: the planets are the brightest objects and they do not blink, as it may seem to happen with stars.

This occurs because the light from the stars arrives, but is affected by the atmosphere, where it suffers from turbulence.

"With the planets, not because we see it with the naked eye, also as dots, but fatter and they flicker much less, with a more stable brightness."

EN ESPAÑOL

How to see rare five-planet alignment in the night sky

The word planet comes to mean

wandering star

, explains Armentia.

The alignment or conjunction of planets used to be of great importance, especially in the Romans and in ancient Greece, since it was argued that the planets were messengers or had the ability to indicate things, he explains.

That is the sense of cultural interpretation that was held then: the belief that by reading the sky and its movements one could know what was going to happen on Earth.

Planetary conjunction has lost importance in that regard today, he says, but it remains of astronomical interest.

Both scientists agree that this event is not so special and that the movements of the planets must be taken into account.

Tafalla believes, however, that these days are a good opportunity to bring astronomy closer to society because no special instrument is required to see the planets.

“I am a professional because one day I became interested in looking at the sky, and I think we can all do it”.

You can follow

MATERIA

on

Facebook

,

Twitter

and

Instagram

, or sign up here to receive

our weekly newsletter

.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-06-24

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.