See a "Parade of Planets" on Feb 28!

Q: It's been an exciting night for stargazers. Can you tell us why?

Jeff Rich: Because we can see almost all of the planets in the Solar System in the sky at once. It's actually been something I've been waiting for since last fall, because until this month, when we have taken our telescopes out to do public engagement, the planets haven't been visible. There have been beautiful stars and constellations and things to look at, but really the exciting thing to see is a planet, especially if you have a telescope or a pair of binoculars. And it's not just one planet right now that's in the sky. It's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven planets.

Even though technically seven planets have been visible all month, Mercury has been very challenging to spot. This is because it’s always very close to the Sun. But on Friday, the 28th, it will be far enough away from the Sun that it will be easier to see.

The next time we’ll be able to see five planets with just the naked eye will be in 2034, so Friday will be a special night.

When Mercury has these rare times of increased visibility, they always occur just before sunrise or just after sunset, due to its proximity to the Sun. Right now,  it’s happening just after sunset, which is great for those of us who don’t like getting up at the crack of dawn. It’s also good for parents who want to do backyard astronomy with their kids, but don’t want to push bedtime too late.

Q: What are some tips for anyone planning to do a little at-home stargazing tomorrow night?

Jeff Rich: Nowadays, the best way to figure out what's up in the sky is to use an app. There are lots and lots of apps. I'm going to name a couple that I like to use, because I find them easy to use, and some of them are free, which is great. Stellarium I use on my computer. There's also a mobile version. Star Walk is an easy-to-use app that allows you to hold up your phone and look at what's in the sky. Sky Safari is another one to use if you want to go really in depth.

All of these allow you to very quickly identify objects in the sky and to double check that you're definitely looking at one of these planets, Venus, Mars, Saturn, Mercury, Jupiter. Additionally, although looking for planets is pretty easy even if it doesn’t get that dark where you live, these apps can help you find other objects to look at with a telescope if you’re able to get someplace farther from civilization with darker skies.

Q: And what about people who don’t have telescopes at home? Can they partake of this fun opportunity?

Jeff Rich: Of the seven planets that will be up in the sky, you won't need a telescope to see all of them, you'll be able to see many of them quite clearly with the naked eye. And the nice thing is, they're actually different colors. Mars is quite red, Jupiter is a little more yellow, so you can look for differences just with your eyes. Planets also don't twinkle, so it's a good way to learn about observing planets versus stars. You can compare the bright planets that you see to the stars around them and watch for twinkling. If it's twinkling. It's not a planet.

The other cool thing is, you can, even with just a pair of binoculars, see some of the details of the planets, depending on your binoculars, depending on how steady your hands are, you might be able to see some of the brighter moons around, say, Jupiter and Saturn.

I want to also be clear, Uranus and Neptune, especially Neptune, are too faint to see with the naked eye. But the other planets you will be able to spot without any extra equipment.

Q: Why are the planets in our Solar System interesting to astronomers?

Jeff Rich: So, the planets have interested humans for millennia, even before we had telescopes, because they move around the sky, catching our attention.

Modern astronomers are really interested in the planets because they're right in our backyard. They allow us to study planet formation and the nature of planets in a way that we can't study other celestial bodies. We can send spacecraft to all the planets in the Solar System and learn about their composition in great detail, because they're right next to us.

One of the interesting things that has emerged over the last 30 years, as we have discovered and learned about planets beyond our own Solar System, is the knowledge that our own home system is actually very different from everything else we’ve found out there. There is a huge diversity of planets and planetary systems and our Solar System turns out to be a bit of an outlier. So, planetary scientists are very interested in probing why this is the case and what shaped the architecture that we see in our Solar System.

Q: You’re the Outreach Coordinator at the Carnegie Science Observatories. Do you have any advice for activities that people could do with kids tomorrow to help enhance the backyard astronomy experience?

Jeff Rich: Even though all these planets are in the sky together, they're all orbiting the Sun at very different distances. So even though Jupiter is almost as bright as Venus to our eyes. It's much, much further away. It’s just a lot more massive. So, there’s this fun activity we like to do called the Pocket Solar System, developed by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, which lets you easily demonstrate the distances of each planet (and dwarf planet Pluto) from the Sun and to really see how much space there is between the outer planets of the Solar System. You can do it with a roll of receipt paper or paper towel and some markers or stickers to designate the planets, allowing you to combine arts and crafts with astronomy, which is always fun for everyone.