A cosmic spectacle, as rare as it is evocative. In these hours in the skies it is possible to admire the so-called “planetary parade”, i.e. the simultaneous alignment of almost all the planets of the Solar System.
The alignment of the planets
Evening hours are obviously the best. Shortly after 7pm, towards the west you can immediately recognize the very bright Venus, the brightest nocturnal star after the Moon, prospectively a few degrees from Saturn, the lord of the rings, currently visible almost side-on with a small telescope. Towards the south, Jupiter shines high in the sky, very flashy, while towards the east you can see the vivid vermilion light of Mars, the famous “Red Planet”. Only the planet Mercury is missing, the closest to the Sun, currently prospectively immersed in the glow of our star.
As astrophysicist Gianluca Masi, scientific director of the Virtual Telescope Project, explains, the planetary parade occupies a large portion of the sky, almost 130 degrees from Saturn to Mars, head and tail of the parade, in the Zodiac band, between the constellations of Aquarius (which hosts Saturn) and Gemini (which accompanies Mars): “It is important to point out that this particular arrangement of the planets has nothing exceptional in itself. The fact that the planets always appear in the sky along a very specific ‘preferential lane’, in fact, derives from the arrangement of their orbits in space, contained on planes not very different from each other. In the background of this privileged band there are the constellations of the Zodiac, famous exclusively for this”.
How to watch the planetary parade
What brought the orbits of the planets into agreement in this sense were precise laws of conservation of some physical quantities, laws which oversaw the formation of the Solar System, five billion years ago: “The arrangement itself of the planets in the sky is therefore ordinary thing – underlines Masi -, what is not obvious is that many of them can be seen at the same time, in procession. At the end of June 2022, at dawn we could even observe all the planets accessible to the naked eye, from Mercury to. Saturn, then arranged perfectly in order of increasing distance from the Sun”
According to the astrophysicist, unlike what has been stated by many, the planets are not arranged in their orbits one behind the other, as if, seen from the Sun or the Earth, they were all visible in the same direction and concentrated in the same angle of sky: “On the contrary, they are found somewhat scattered all around our star, so much so that they appear distributed in the sky, it was said, over a very large portion of the Zodiac. If Venus, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars are easily observable with the naked eye also from city, a modest pair of binoculars will allow you to see, in the same sky, also Uranus and Neptune, the last and most distant members of the planetary family of the Sun”.
The Moon and Mercury also arrive
This parade will be observable for a few weeks and from February 1st the Moon will also be added; at the end of February, however, it will be possible to attempt the observation of a complete parade of Mercury, which in the meantime will have “freed” itself from the solar glare, showing itself in the west immediately after sunset. However, Saturn will now be difficult to see with the naked eye, bathed in the glare of evening twilight, but it should not escape binocular vision. For those who wish to watch the spectacle of the planetary parade from the comfort of their own home, Virtual Telescope Project has set up a live streaming, totally free, with the event which will be filmed thanks to the instruments installed in Manciano (GR), under the purest sky from light pollution of peninsular Italy. To participate, simply connect to the following link: the appointment is for Saturday 25 January 2025 at 6.30 pm.