This week sees the closest grouping of three planets since May 27, 2013 – and it will not happen again until January 10, 2021.
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“This means that very few pebbles collide with objects near the current location of Mars”. The celestial event will be bright enough that it can be seen from nearly anywhere in the country, even brightly lit cities like New York (so we’ll be able to see it too!).
“As far as I know, this is the first model to reproduce the structure of the solar system – Earth and Venus, a small Mars, a low-mass asteroid belt, two gas giants, two ice giants (Uranus and Neptune), and a pristine Kuiper Belt”, Levison said.
As the planets move across the sky this week, they will trace a triangle that will grow increasingly small until it’s only about 5 degrees wide, or the width of your three middle fingers.
BBC reports that Venus, Mars and Jupiter will be lining up due to the timing of their orbits around the Sunday. If you have a typical pair of binoculars, all three planets will fit inside your field of view.
You can see it any morning this week by waking up before sunrise and looking towards the eastern horizon.
While a telescope or binoculars will give you a better view of the planets, as well as a view of Jupiter’s moons, you do not need an optical aid to see them. In case of clear skies and a bit of extra effort, the true aficionado can try locating a fourth planet, Mercury, beneath the other three, while the sun rises. On 26th October, people around the globe will watch this year’s last supermoon while on Halloween a huge asteroid will fly surprisingly close to our home planet.
As a result they do not appear to twinkle or flicker like stars do. Jupiter will be the second brightest followed by Mars, which will appear redder and dimmer than the others.
If you set up on a tripod you’ll be able to see three or four of Jupiter’s biggest moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
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Out of all the planets that will be aligned, Venus will apparently be the brightest one, making it the easiest to identify.
