The night sky is the place where you will be able to witness 5 of our planetary siblings this week, stretching from Feburary 1st to about two weeks into the month at least. This is an event that hasn’t been encountered since 2005 and won’t happen again for a while to come. While some of the five celestial bodies are almost always visible form the surface of the Earth, others are not that fond of showing themselves throughout the year.
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will all have their turn of showing brightly on the night sky. Looking out your window today, as long as you do it about an hour before sunrise, may just grace you with the view of several of them. In order to catch the scenery, you will need to have a good view of the southeast to southwest part of the sky. If you wish to catch Mercury too, you will need to be able to see the horizon as well as it normally only makes a short appearance before being drowned into the sunrise.
Venus has always shown as one of the brightest celestial bodies we get to see during our night sky. At about 6:30 in the morning, you’ll find it shining towards the southeast with Saturn to its right and Mars shining a little higher than the rest of them. Jupiter remains the only lone ‘star’ in the sky as it’s the only one who will be visible towards the southwestern portion.
On February the 2nd, you’ll be able to detect Saturn and Mars easier as they shine to either side of the morning remnant of the moon. On February 3rd, you’ll be able to spot Saturn right below and to the left of the moon. By February 6th, as the moon continues its gradual ascent, it will create a triangle with Mercury and Venus.
But the phenomenon is not going to last as much as we would hope to. With the next occurrence of the alignment not being expected to happen until 2018 the very least, anyone willing to witness it should hurry and visit an observatory or at least the highest building roof they can think of until the 10th of this month. After February 10th, the alignment will be partially spoiled by the slow drift of Mercury on the night sky. As the change occurs, Mercury will be coming too close to the rising Sun and be drowned out in the brightness of the star.
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