Planetary alignment peaks Friday night

An fairly rare occurrence is set to appear in the sky this week.

Friday night will be the peak time to observe a unique alignment of all of the seven other planets in our solar system in the sky at the same time. The best time to look will be right around sunset, close to 6 p.m.

Mercury is the missing puzzle piece here, as the other six planets have been gracing our skies throughout February. It now joins the party!

Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and now Mercury are potentially visible to the naked eye, but Uranus and Neptune will require the use of a telescope or strong binoculars. Mercury will also be difficult to spot due to its tiny size and lower location on the horizon.

The reason we don’t see all the planets every night is due to their varying orbital periods. For example, Venus and Mercury have smaller and faster orbits than the other planets in our solar system, meaning Venus is only visible for a couple of months at a time, and Mercury appears in even shorter bursts.

It’s not that uncommon to spot four or five planets at the same time with the naked eye, but a parade of all seven other planets in the sky is pretty special. In fact, this ‘great planetary alignment’ won’t happen again until 2040.

Further adding to this event, the the alignment will be coinciding with a new moon (no unnecessary brightness in the sky) and clear weather. So happy stargazing, or I guess in this case, planet-gazing!