Planetary parade facts for kids
Imagine looking up at the night sky and seeing several planets lined up! This amazing sight is called a planetary parade. It's also known as a planetary alignment or planetary procession. It happens when many planets in our Solar System appear visible from Earth at the same time.
It's important to know that a planetary parade isn't a true straight line of planets in space. Instead, it's how they look from our point of view on Earth. The planets are actually in their own orbits, but from here, they seem to form an arc across the sky.
Seeing three, four, or even five planets together is quite common. However, parades with more planets are much rarer. Since we can predict how planets move, scientists can easily calculate when these parades happened in the past and when they will happen in the future.
Contents
Exciting Planetary Parades
Planetary parades are special events for skywatchers. Here are some notable ones.
The 2025 Planetary Parade
The year 2025 featured two big planetary parades. These events showed six and then seven planets.
The first part of this amazing event happened between January 21 and February 21, 2025. During this time, you could see six planets in the night sky:
The second part of the 2025 parade took place on February 28, 2025. For this event, the planet Mercury joined the other six planets, making it a seven-planet show!
Looking Ahead: The 2040 Parade
After the exciting parades of 2025, the next big six-planet parade will happen in 2040. On September 12, 2040, the five planets you can see without a telescope will appear very close together in the sky. These "naked-eye planets" are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
Learn More About Space
- Syzygy (astronomy): This is when three or more space objects are truly lined up in a straight line.
- Conjunction (astronomy): This happens when two or more objects appear very close to each other in the sky.
