​Catch a glimpse of a rare planetary alignment—before it’s too late

Look to the cosmos around sunset this week for a glimpse of five major planets—Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Uranus and Mars—lining up with the moon. 

Even if you missed the peak alignment on Tuesday evening, experts say there’s still time to catch this lineup of Earth’s neighbors. Here’s what you need to know about what causes this phenomenon, how rare it is, and—most critically—how to see it.

How to see it

Andrew Fazekas, the Night Sky Guy and lead author of the National Geographic Stargazer’s Atlas, tells Nat Geo that the five planets will appear in a diagonal line in the southwest sky on Wednesday, March 29. 

If you grab a pair of binoculars, you’ll see Mercury and Jupiter hanging very low in the western sky. As you follow the diagonal line higher and to the west, you’ll see the bright point of light that is Venus, followed by a faint green light that marks Uranus. At the highest point in the southwest, he says, “is the ruddy-colored Mars, easy to find with naked-eyes.”

(Here are 11 other spectacular night sky events to see in 2023.)

The Southern Hemisphere will also have a view of the planetary alignment, but Fazekas says it will really be tilted toward the northwestern sky.

All five planets should be visible for the rest of the week. By next week, however, Jupiter will continue to sink toward the horizon while Mercury will rise up and become easier to see without binoculars.

Why does it happen and how rare is it?

It’s not that unusual to see groups of planets line up in the night sky from time to time, according to the Associated Press. The planets in our solar system are constantly in orbit around the sun—and sometimes those orbits happen to line them up on the same side of the sun from the Earth’s perspective. That’s when we see an alignment.

Last summer, in fact, brought an even rarer alignment of all the major planets in the solar system—including five easily spotted with the naked eye. Earth won’t see such a spectacular celestial show again until 2040.

The good news is, however, that there are many more awe-inspiring night sky events ahead of us in 2023—from the Lyrids meteor shower in late April to an otherworldly ring of fire eclipse in mid-October. Stay tuned.