On Wednesday, astronomy buffs witnessed what experts regard as a rare astronomical event where all the planets in the solar system were visible in the night sky.
Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars were all visible with the unaided eye in the Northern Hemisphere. While the two outermost planets, Uranus and Neptune, were visible through binoculars or telescopes and would remain so through the end of the year.
According to Space, such ‘grand excursions’ take place about every one to two years.
All eight planets, according to Guardian, were only 1.5 degrees apart on Wednesday night and will come together today (Thursday, December 29) at 2100 GMT (0230 IST).
Talking to Newsweek, Gianluca Masi, an astronomer with the Virtual Telescope Project in Italy, said ‘These nights, we can see all the planets of our solar system at a glance, soon after sunset. It happens from time to time, but it is always a spectacular sight.’
In June, skywatchers were treated to a similar but rarer alignment of five planets, where Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were arranged in an alignment the likes of which hadn’t occurred in about 150 years, or since 1864.
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