It’s been awhile since we’ve had all five fellow planets in our solar system visible to the naked eye. Four of the five are arranged in two pairs and one of them is a lone wolf, and all are available in the early evening. Three out of the five planets are easy to see, but two of them are toughies. Hey, stargazing challenges can be a lot of fun.
Let’s start with the lone wolf. That’s Jupiter, which has occupied our evening skies for many months now. The largest planet in our solar system is shining brightly in the low western sky after dark. It’s the brightest star-like object in the evening heavens. In fact, this weekend the first quarter moon is a little to the left of Jupiter. You can resolve the disk of the great planet, now 549 million miles away, with a small telescope. You can also see up to four of Jupiter’s largest orbiting moons, which resemble tiny stars on either side of the big guy.
A little above Jupiter is the fairly bright constellation Leo the Lion. The lower right side resembles a rightward leaning backward question mark. Without an overdose of imagination you can see how that query symbol outlines the profile of the chest and head of the heavenly beast.
The easiest pair of planets to see are Mars and Saturn, ready for your enjoyment as soon as darkness sets in. it. In fact, Mars is still nearly as close to Earth as it’s been since 2005. Right now it’s about 57 million miles away. Shortly after evening twilight a distinctly bright and red “star” will pop out in the low southern sky. That’s Mars. The only other brighter star-like object in the sky right now is Jupiter.
A little deeper into evening twilight, another bright star pops out just to the lower left of Mars. The star, Antares, is the next brightest object in that part of the sky. It’s just 17 degrees or about 1½ fist-widths at arms lengthtothe left of Mars. Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion, is more than 3,400 trillion miles away and also has a distinctive reddish glow. In fact, the name comes from a Greek phrase meaning “rival of Mars.”
The other pair of planets is in a really tight celestial hug, but is much more of a challenge to see. Venus and Mercury, the two planets closer to the sun than we are in the solar system, are in nearly the same line of sight from our Earthly perch. They’re less than a degree apart, which is about the diameter of a full moon in the sky. The extreme challenge in seeing them hugging is that they are extremely close to the west-northwest horizon. The two planets will become barely visible about 20 minutes or so after sunset and will set below the horizon within an hour of sunset.
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist in Minneapolis.
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