How to watch rare ‘planet line-up’ in French night sky tonight
‘January is an incredible month for skywatchers’, says NASA
The planets (sadly) will not look this spectacular this evening, but you should still be able to see four of them from France, without any specialist equipment
Piysho/Shutterstock
Six planets in our Solar System will be visible tonight (Thursday, January 23) in France - four of which can be seen with the naked eye - in a rare ‘planets aligning’ phenomenon set to last until January 25.
The planets have been ‘aligning’ since January 21, and, weather permitting, will be visible to stargazers this evening until Saturday, January 25.
The planets involved will be:
Venus
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
The first four will be visible to the naked eye, while Neptune and Uranus will only be visible with specialist equipment.
US space agency NASA mentioned the line up in a post on X (formerly Twitter), saying: “January is an incredible month for skywatchers, with multi-planet viewing opportunities.”
Specialist website Futura Sciences said that while it is not “really rare, nor really common” that several planets are on the same side of our Sun at the same time (making them visible in the sky), the real rarity with this phenomenon - called the ‘Great Alignment’ - is that it involves nearly all of the planets of our Solar System.
Will the planets really ‘line up’?
No, the planets will not truly be ‘aligned’ in a perfect straight line. Instead, they will all appear to be closer in space than usual, on the same ‘plane’. This is what makes them seem aligned to us on Earth.
This same phenomenon is also what gives us the impression that the Sun and Moon seem to follow the same ‘ecliptic’ path in the sky.
Thierry Lamouline, president of the Parc du Cosmos at Les Angles, said that rather than a real alignment, the event is more of a “planetary parade”. “It's rare enough to be fun to watch,” he told Ici Vaucluse.
A genuine alignment would be “virtually impossible”, said Mr Lamouline. He also added that it would be “absolutely unspectacular from Earth, [as we wouldn’t be able to see it]”.
He said that the last time a real alignment of this kind happened was in the year 950, and the next time it will happen will be in the year 2800.
How to see the show from home
If the weather allows, four of the planets will be visible without any specialist equipment (see the list above).
For the best views, it is always advised to leave the city and avoid light pollution as much as possible. You can also use binoculars to get a better look.
Venus and Saturn should be visible if you look southwest, while Jupiter will be overhead, and Mars will be further east.
Even in the city, however, the best views will become visible from after 22:00 and even towards midnight, when many large public lighting displays are switched off, and the sky becomes darker.
