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The Planets Are Prepping For An Epic Alignment. Here’s How To See It

This summer, five planets visible to the naked eye will align and march through the sky in an extraordinary alignment illuminated by the moonlight.

Alignments of the five visible planets without telescopes or binoculars occur rarely every few years. It occurred last in 2020 and before in 2016, 2016, and 2005, according to Michelle Nichols, director of public observing at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium. Skywatchers may already see the procession of planets forming, but they will be visible in their whole from late June to early July

Mercury revolves about the sun once every 88 Earth days, Venus once every 225 Earth days, Mars once every 687 Earth days, Jupiter once every 12 years, and Saturn once every 29 Earth years. Given these disparate times, the planets’ orbits bring them rarely close together.

This sky chart shows the close conjunction of Mars and Saturn before sunrise on April 4. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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