One of the solar system’s most fortuitous conga lines occurred in the late 1970s, when the four gas giants—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—formed a neat cosmic column, allowing the Voyager spacecraft to make flybys of all of them. The twin ships performed dazzling science, returning some of the best pictures ever taken of the worlds and discovering moons and rings never before seen.
Things won’t be quite as history-making on June 3, 2024, but they will be eye-popping all the same. It is on that date that stargazers in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world will have their best chance of seeing what is being colloquially called a parade of planets, when six of our solar system’s eight planets (nine if you count little disenfranchised Pluto) will be visible at once in the sky. The half dozen worlds on display will be Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, but they won’t all be easy to spot—and you’ll have to get up early to see them at all. Here’s what to know to take in this latest sky show.
What is a parade of planets?
For all of the stir the spectacle is causing, the parade is mostly an optical illusion, with the planets not truly lining up the way they did in the Voyager era. Rather, they are scattered all across the sky at different depths, positions, and distances, and just happen to be visible at once in a 73° area. The phenomenon is a little like randomly placing six different people at six different spots in a field and positioning yourself so that you can gather them all in your camera lens at once.
Read More: How to Prepare for the Next Solar Storm
While true alignments are rare—the one that the Voyager probes took advantage of was the only one of its kind within a 176-year period—planetary parades are relatively common. Another six-planet parade will be visible on August 28, 2024, and four others, some consisting of just three or four planets, will occur between then and August 2025.
Where will the planets be?
It will…
