All planets in the solar system become visible in a rare celestial event
Humans throughout history have been obsessed with two spheres – the world under water and the outer space. Why? Because mysterious and unusual things keep happening in both the realms. One such happened recently when all the planets in the solar system became visible simultaneously in the night sky. This is now being deemed as a rare celestial event.
Beginning with south western horizon and heading eastward appeared Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in this order. They could all be seen in the northern hemisphere with naked human eyes.
Before you start wondering where Uranus and Neptune went, well, they were there too but could only be viewed with binoculars or telescope. In fact, they will be visible every day in the night sky until the year end.
The night when all the eight planets had appeared together, they were only 1.5 degrees in angular separation, one of the closest they have come in years. However, astronomers predict that today they will be at their conjunction – their closest point ever.
Sources also cite that the planets will be spotted in the lower western horizon and their clearest view in absence of cloud cover or fog will be half an hour post sunset and Venus disappearing 40 minutes following that every day and again reappearing the next.
What was interesting about this particular astronomical event is that Mercury, that is usually challenging to come across without any kind of artificial magnification as it is situated in the brightest part of the solar system did offer a glance with a close tilt towards its only neighbour Venus.
While most planets were east bending. Jupiter was south facing and thus shone the brightest than all the other planets combined. However, the largest planet of the solar system only lasted till midnight, while Earth’s favourite neighbour Mars was visible all night long spreading its red hue. In fact, rising east ahead of the sunset and staying on till the next sunrise, Mars remained the longest time in the night sky.
Similarly, Saturn revealed its true ‘golden’ colour by appearing in the south west and coincided with the sunset. Earth’s only satellite Moon appeared as a crescent near Saturn.
Wondering how rare this celestial event was? Well, it had last happened in June 2004 when all planets were visible at the same time and in the same sequence.
This once in a blue moon event was first observed by Gianluca Masi, an Italian astronomer and head of the Virtual Telescope Project.