When And Where To See A Six-Planet Parade This Weekend, Last Until 2028
From Aug. 17–21, a spectacular 'planet parade' (also called an alignment) features the moon and six planets. getty
Venus and Jupiter will shine close to each other above due east, with Mercury becoming visible beneath them closer to sunrise.
Saturn is high in the south, with Neptune just above. Uranus is high in the southeast, but like Neptune, requires a telescope to see. You don't need anything but your naked eyes to see this 'planet parade.'
Joining the 'planet parade' all week is a waning crescent moon, which will get slimmer on each successive morning and pass close to the Venus, Jupiter and Mercury later in the week.
Mars is the solitary planet left in the evening sky, so isn't part of this 'planet parade.'
Sunday, August 17: A 'Planet Parade' Stellarium
Here's what to expect this week as the 'planet parade' peaks: Sunday, Aug. 17: a 36%-lit crescent moon will shine high above Jupiter, Venus and a low-lying Mercury, with Saturn high in the south.
Monday, Aug. 18: the crescent moon slims to 26%-lit, drawing nearer to the planets and glowing with Earthshine — sunlight reflected from Earth onto the lunar surface.
Tuesday, Aug. 19: Mercury will be at its highest in the morning sky as the moon wanes to 16%-lit and forms a curve with Venus and Jupiter.
Wednesday, Aug. 20: a now 9%-lit crescent moon will appear right next to Venus, with Mercury below and Jupiter above.
Thursday, Aug. 21: although it will be tricky to see, a slender 4% moon will be positioned just above the horizon, near Jupiter and Venus, and close to Mercury and the Beehive Cluster of stars. Surprising Fact
You'll hear the erroneous term 'planetary alignment' used to describe this event, along with advice about seeing six planets despite only four being visible to the naked eye. Stargazers prefer 'planet parade.' That's because the planets aren't aligned in space — they just appear that way from our vantage point on Earth. The planets are spread out, as they always are, along the ecliptic — the plane of the solar system. If you think of the solar system as a fried egg, with the sun at the center, the planets (including Earth) orbit in a circle around it. If planets were truly aligned, they would all appear as a single point of light as seen from Earth. Alignment in astronomy typically refers to syzygy, such as an eclipse, which does not apply here.
Though these planets appear close in the sky, they're separated by staggering distances. Venus is around 118 million miles (190 million kilometers) from Earth this week, while Jupiter is almost five times farther at 548 million miles (882 million kilometers), with distant Saturn 888 million miles (1,430 million kilometers). Mercury, the closest, is about 80 million miles (128 million kilometers) away. A 'planet parade' is purely a line-of-sight phenomenon.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took this image of Saturn on 22 Sept. 2022. SCIENCE: NASA, ESA, Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC) IMAGE PROCESSING: Alyssa Pagan (STScI) What's Next In The Night Sky
The 'planet parade' will come to an end around Aug. 21 when Mercury slips into the sun's glare, leaving only Saturn, Venus and Jupiter on show. However, it will be worth taking a look early on Aug. 31, when Venus will meet the Beehive Cluster in the early morning twilight. The next sky highlight — particularly for those with a backyard telescope — is Saturn at opposition on Sept. 21, 2025. With Earth between Saturn and the sun, the ringed planet will appear at its largest, brightest, and best in 2025, visible from dusk through dawn. Further Reading Forbes 'Planet Parade' Myths Debunked And How To Truly See It — By A Stargazer By Jamie Carter Forbes Your Ultimate Guide To Meteor Showers And The Perseids — By An Expert By Jamie Carter Forbes NASA Urges Public To Leave The City As Milky Way Appears — 15 Places To Go By Jamie Carter
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Moon phase today: What the moon will look like on August 16, 2025
The moon is half lit up tonight, which means a lot of things. Namely, we're in a new lunar cycle. The lunar cycle is a series of eight unique phases of the moon's visibility. The whole cycle takes about 29.5 days, according to NASA, and these different phases happen as the Sun lights up different parts of the moon whilst it orbits Earth. So, what's happening with the moon tonight, Aug. 16? What is today's moon phase? As of Saturday, Aug. 16, the moon phase is Third Quarter (also known as the Last Quarter) and it is 46% lit up to us on Earth, according to NASA's Daily Moon Observation. From this point onwards, the moon will be less and less visible, as we're now on day 23 of the lunar cycle. But there's still plenty to spot on the moon's surface, if you look hard enough. With your naked eye, catch a glimpse of the Aristarchus Plateau, the Tycho Crater, and the Copernicus Crater. With binoculars, see even more, including the Archimedes Crater, Alphonsus Crater, and the Clavius Crater. If you have a telescope, look out for the Apollo 12, Reiner Gamma, and the Schiller Crater, too. When is the next full moon? The next full moon will be on Sept. 7. The last full moon was on Aug. 9. What are moon phases? According to NASA, moon phases are caused by the 29.5-day cycle of the moon's orbit, which changes the angles between the Sun, Moon, and Earth. Moon phases are how the moon looks from Earth as it goes around us. We always see the same side of the moon, but how much of it is lit up by the Sun changes depending on where it is in its orbit. This is how we get full moons, half moons, and moons that appear completely invisible. There are eight main moon phases, and they follow a repeating cycle: New Moon - The moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye). Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere). First Quarter - Half of the moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-moon. Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it's not quite full yet. Full Moon - The whole face of the moon is illuminated and fully visible. Waning Gibbous - The moon starts losing light on the right side. Last Quarter (or Third Quarter) - Another half-moon, but now the left side is lit. Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
A 'blood moon' is on its way, but you'll need to travel to see it
Another blood moon is coming in 2025, but you'll only see it if you're traveling internationally this fall. A total lunar eclipse will occur Sept. 7, though it won't be visible in New Jersey skies — or even in the U.S., according to Prime viewing is expected in Asia, east Africa and western Australia, along with a chance to glimpse the eclipse in Europe, eastern Australia and New Zealand, the BBC Sky at Night Magazine and said. Here's what to know about the upcoming eclipse. When is the total lunar eclipse in September 2025? The total lunar eclipse will take place Sept. 7, 2025, according to What is a total lunar eclipse? A total lunar eclipse is when the sun, Earth and moon align so the moon is covered by the Earth's shadow, or umbra, NASA said. Where will the total lunar eclipse be visible? The total lunar eclipse will be visible across parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, according to the BBC Sky at Night Magazine and Can you watch the eclipse from New Jersey? The total lunar eclipse won't be visible in New Jersey, but you can watch it online. If you'd like to follow the eclipse, check out Time and Date's online livestream on Sept 7. Why does the moon appear red during a total lunar eclipse? You can expect the moon to take on a dramatic shade of red or orange in the night sky during the total lunar eclipse, leading it to be known as a "blood moon." That's because of how sunlight strikes the moon's surface after passing through the atmosphere, NASA said. As the moon is covered by the inner part of Earth's shadow during the eclipse, sunlight not blocked by Earth is filtered through a thick slice of Earth's atmosphere before reaching the moon's surface, NASA explained. Colors with shorter wavelengths, such as blues and violets, scatter more easily than colors with longer wavelengths, which include red and orange. When is the next total lunar eclipse? The next total lunar eclipse visible in the Americas will occur March 3, 2026, NASA said. A second, partial, eclipse visible in the Americas takes place in August 2026. August 2026 also will feature a total solar eclipse visible in Greenland, Iceland, Spain, Russia, and a small area of Portugal, while a partial eclipse will be visible in Europe, Africa, North America, the Atlantic Ocean, Arctic Ocean, and Pacific Ocean. Contact Jenna Prestininzi: jprestininzi@ This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Where to view 'Blood Moon' total lunar eclipse in September Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Earliest Black Hole Ever Confirmed Could Explain Mysterious Red Dots
Astronomers have confirmed the earliest, most distant black hole yet – and it's surprisingly monstrous for its time. Residing in a galaxy called CAPERS-LRD-z9, it was already approximately 300 million times the mass of the Sun just 500 million years after the Big Bang, when the baby Universe was just 3 percent of its current age. Additionally, this discovery sheds literal light on an ancient, mysterious class of celestial objects called Little Red Dots (LRDs), which are perplexingly bright, small, red objects in the early Universe. They appear around 600 million years after the Big Bang then start disappearing less than a billion years later. LRDs have only recently been revealed by JWST's unprecedented infrared ability to explore Cosmic Dawn, the universe's earliest epochs. These are also the Universe's reddest epochs, as the light reaching JWST has been stretched to ever-redder wavelengths on its long journey through the expanding fabric of spacetime. Related: The newly confirmed supermassive black hole at the heart of CAPERS-LRD-z9 is known as an active galactic nucleus (AGN), the bright, rapidly feeding black hole at the center of a galaxy. It appears red because it's enveloped in a glowing cocoon of gas and dust, which may make it a science-fiction-sounding "black hole star." The gravity of this supermassive black hole is whipping the gas around it to mind-boggling speeds of around 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) per second, or 1 percent the speed of light. These gassy winds are what help astronomers reveal the presence of black holes via spectroscopy. "There aren't many other things that create this signature," explains lead author Anthony Taylor, astrophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin. Spectroscopy splits incoming light into its wavelengths to yield a spectrum that reveals information about an object. In this case, the light waves from the gas around the black hole gets stretched and turns redder when it moves away from an observer. Conversely, light becomes compressed and bluer when it's moving toward an observer. These changes reveal an object's velocity. Importantly, the spectroscopic confirmation of CAPERS-LRD-z9 supports the idea that LRDs contain supermassive black holes, with "supermassive" being an understatement: some reach 10 million solar masses within their first billion years. For comparison, the supermassive black hole at the core of the Milky Way is about 4 million solar masses. The black holes at the heart of LRDs may not just be supermassive, but "overmassive," with mass ratios approaching 10 percent to 100 percent of their host galaxy's stellar mass. Specifically, at up to around 300 million solar masses, the supermassive black hole in CAPERS-LRD-z9 has the equivalent of about half the mass of all the stars in its galaxy. By contrast, more local galaxies may have central black holes that are only about 0.1 percent of their stellar mass. For added size perspective, CAPERS-LRD-z9 is so compact that not even JWST can resolve it. It seems to be, at most, 1,140 light-years wide – in the realm of the dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way. The researchers say that there are two ways for a black hole to grow so massive within just 500 million years of cosmic time. Both start with a big, heavy "seed" black hole growing at different rates. If it's growing at the theoretical upper limit of black hole growth, known as the Eddington rate, the seed might have started with around 10,000 solar masses. Or, it could have started off much smaller, at just 100 solar masses. That seed would have to grow even faster, at the super-Eddington rate, force-fed by gravity and the thick, dense envelope of gas around it. The seeds themselves may originate as primordial black holes produced when the Big Bang, well, banged. They may also form from the collapse of Population III stars (the elusive first stars to illuminate the cosmos), from "runaway collisions" in dense star clusters, or from the direct collapse of immense, primordial gas clouds. Overall, it's difficult to peer much farther in spacetime: "When looking for black holes, this is about as far back as you can practically go. We're really pushing the boundaries of what current technology can detect," adds Taylor. Finally, this research adds evidence that LRDs were an ephemeral phenomena in the early universe, and potentially an initial step in galactic evolution that may have birthed the Milky Way itself. This research is published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Related News Supermassive Black Hole Caught in The Act of Switching on Star Trying to Swallow a Black Hole May Have Triggered a New Type of Supernova Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Seen in Stunning New Hubble Image Solve the daily Crossword
