Chennai: Sky watchers look up. A rare celestial event is occurring after 10 years. The five brightest planets in our solar system – Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter – are lining up in order, making it easier to locate them together with the naked eye.
The best time to witness the astronomic show is the pre-dawn hours of February 3-10. A. Prabhakaran, astronomy educator with Space Technology and Education Pvt. Ltd (SPACE), told DC they are popularising about the important astronomic event among school children.
“Not many people have seen all five planets with naked eye, even most of them may not know whether it can be seen with naked eye or not.”
Generally, all these five planets are visible at different times of the night, but it is rare to appear together. All can be seen with naked eye but Uranus and Neptune are only visible with telescopes”.
He said the last time all five visible planets appeared together was over 10 years ago (mid-December 2004 and mid-January 2005) if you miss it, your next opportunity will be 2020.
The expert also explained that to identify the planets among stars, people should watch out for the twinkle.
“Planets just look like a star in the sky but the difference is they mostly don’t twinkle like stars do”, he said.
