Every Planet In The Solar System Visible In Rare Planet Parade
The planets of the solar system were lined up in the sky Wednesday night in an astronomical phenomenon, visible from Earth, known as a “planet parade.”
The phenomenon, which was also visible Tuesday night, gave skywatchers a good view of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn with the naked eye. With a pair of binoculars or a telescope, Uranus and Neptune could also be seen.
The planet parade is not an extremely rare occurrence it tends to happen at least every couple of years. In fact, the eight-planet alignment last happened in .
In order to see the phenomenon, it was recommended you look south after sunset. From east to west, the planets appeared in this order: Mars, Uranus, Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, Mercury, Venus.
“People should look southward about 30 to 45 minutes after sunset to catch Mercury and Venus before they’re too close to the horizon to observe,” said Vahé Peroomian, a professor of astronomy and physics at the University of Southern California. “Jupiter, Saturn and Mars will be visible once it gets dark, from southeast to east.”
Planets can appear together in the same part of the sky during their orbits around the sun, Peroomian told CBS News.
It is a bigger feat for Neptune and Uranus to also be visible at the same time as they take 165 years and 84 years, respectively, to orbit the sun.
Both planets “spend considerable time on opposite sides of the Sun from our vantage point,” Peroomian said.
Planets Of The Solar System
Evidence suggests that the Solar System formed almost five billion years ago.
It started from a spinning cloud of gas and dust. The centre of the cloud began to collapse, forming the Sun. Collisions of the surrounding material formed the eight planets. The inner planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. The outer planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Interesting Facts About Saturn:
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You could line up 9 Earths across Jupiter to reach both sides of the planet, and that’s without counting the rings.
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Saturn is not the only planet to have rings.
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The planet’s name also means “Father of Jupiter”.
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Light speed from Sun: 164 min
Time to make every pre-teen burst with laughter… Here comes Uranus! Ha. Ha. Ha.
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, and is the third largest planet in the Solar System. It is an ice giant made of… ice, with water, methane, and amonia.
Believe it or not, Uranus does have rings, 13 to be exact! They are just much less apparent than Saturn’s rings.
Only one spacecraft has flown by Uranus since the dawn of time… Voyager 2. No other mission has ever been sent to study Uranus up close and personal.
The most unique feature of Uranus is its rotation. Just like Venus, Uranus rotates in the opposite way as other planets, East to West, but to make it even more unique, Uranus rotates on its side!
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The Core Accretion Model
Approximately 4.6 billion years ago, the solar system was a cloud of dust and gas known as a solar nebula. Gravity collapsed the material in on itself as it began to spin, forming the sun in the center of the nebula.
With the rise of the sun, the remaining material began to clump together. Small particles drew together, bound by the force of gravity, into larger particles, according to the core accretion model. The solar wind swept away lighter elements, such as hydrogen and helium, from the closer regions, leaving only heavy, rocky materials to create terrestrial worlds. But farther away, the solar winds had less impact on lighter elements, allowing them to coalesce into gas giants. In this way, asteroids, comets, planets and moons were created.
Some exoplanet observations seem to confirm core accretion as the dominant formation process. Stars with more “metals” a term astronomers use for elements other than hydrogen and helium in their cores have more giant planets than their metal-poor cousins. According to NASA , core accretion suggests that small, rocky worlds should be more common than the large gas giants.
The Problem With Pluto
First discovered in 1930, Pluto has always been considered the odd-ball of the Solar System. It is much smaller than the planets of our Solar System, and is even smaller than our Moon! Pluto does not orbit the Sun on the same plane as the eight planets, instead its orbit takes it above and below the planets.
The debate over Plutos planetary status began when astronomers discovered more objects beyond the orbit of Neptune. These objects are called Trans-Neptunian Objects or TNOs.
In 2005, Eris was discovered . Eris is a TNO that is further from the Sun than Pluto and it is even larger than Pluto! Its discovery gave rise to the question: should Eris become our tenth planet or should Pluto be demoted?
To make this decision, the International Astronomical Union realised it was time to officially define the term planet. The new definition states that a planet is an object in the Solar System that:
It is this last criterion that Pluto does not meet. Pluto is found within the Kuiper Belt, a ring of objects that lies beyond Neptune. So there are countless other objects present around Plutos orbit. But what is Pluto, if it is not a planet?
It is expected that other objects will soon be classified as dwarf planets. Some of the potential candidates are: Vesta and Pallas, situated in the Asteroid Belt and Varuna, Quaoar, Orcus, Ixion and Sedna, which are TNOs.
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Which Planets Are In Retrograde
When the zodiac display is enabled, glowing indicators appear on those planets that are in retrograde – which means the planet is appearing to be moving backwards from its normal motion when viewed from Earth. The image to the left shows Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune in retrograde because Earth is speeding past on the inside orbit.
In Astrology, it is very important to know when the planets are in retrograde, and also when they stop and start to move forwards again because it is believed that this motion can reverse and enhance the effect of the planet. For Astronomy, retrograde motions have no importance since they are simply the result of the motions of the planets relative to Earth.
The New Horizons Mission And The Planet Debate
A contingent of professionals did not take the decision lightly. “I’m embarrassed for astronomy,” Alan Stern, a leader of NASA‘s New Horizons mission, which flew past Pluto in 2015, told Space.com, adding that less than 5 percent of the world’s 10,000 astronomers participated in the vote.
New Horizons was a significant turning point in the planet debate, as its swift flyby by Pluto showed a world that is far more dynamic than anyone imagined. Large mountains, battered craters and signs of liquid flowing upon its surface all point to a world that underwent massive geological change since its formation. On this basis alone, people like Stern have said, Pluto should be considered a planet since it is a dynamic place, a place that is not so static that only micrometeorites disturb its surface.
Views of Charon, Pluto’s moon, also show a very dynamic place, including a red cap on its pole that appears to change appearance with the slow seasonal change that far out in the solar system. Notably, Pluto possesses several moons while two established planets, Mercury and Venus, do not.
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Could There Be Life On Mercury
Finding life on Mercury is extremely unlikely. Because of its proximity to the sun, the planet faces extreme temperatures and solar radiation all year round, making survival almost impossible.
The planet does not have a layered atmosphere like the Earth to retain heat, instead, it has a surface boundary exosphere meaning the surface temperatures vary from one extreme to the other, and range from -173 °C during the night to 427 °C in the daytime .
It is possible that microorganisms could have lived on the planet millions of years ago, but no living thing is believed to be able to survive on the planet today.
Pluto: Once A Planet Now A Dwarf Planet
– Day: 6.4 Earth days
– Number of moons: 5
It is smaller than Earth’s moon its orbit is highly elliptical, falling inside Neptune’s orbit at some points and far beyond it at others and Pluto’s orbit doesn’t fall on the same plane as all the other planets instead, it orbits 17.1 degrees above or below.
It is smaller than Earth’s moon its orbit is highly elliptical, falling inside Neptune’s orbit at some points and far beyond it at others and Pluto’s orbit doesn’t fall on the same plane as all the other planets instead, it orbits 17.1 degrees above or below, taking 288 years to complete a single orbit
From 1979 until early 1999, Pluto had been the eighth planet from the sun. Then, on Feb. 11, 1999, it crossed Neptune’s path and once again became the solar system’s most distant planet until it was redefined as a dwarf planet. It’s a cold, rocky world with a tenuous atmosphere.
Scientists thought it might be nothing more than a hunk of rock on the outskirts of the solar system. But when NASA’s New Horizons mission performed history’s first flyby of the Pluto system on July 14, 2015, it transformed scientists’ view of Pluto.
Pluto is a very active ice world that’s covered in glaciers, mountains of ice water, icy dunes and possibly even cryovolcanoes that erupt icy lava made of water, methane or ammonia.
Related: Why isn’t Pluto a planet anymore?
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The Disk Instability Model
Other models struggle to explain the formation of the gas giants. According to core accretion models, the process would take several million years, longer than the light gases were available in the early solar system.
“Giant planets form really fast, in a few million years,” Kevin Walsh, a researcher at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, told Space.com. “That creates a time limit because the gas disk around the sun only lasts 4 to 5 million years.”
A relatively new theory called disk instability addresses this challenge. In the disk instability model of planet formation, clumps of dust and gas are bound together early in the life of the solar system. Over time, these clumps slowly compact into a giant planet.
Planets can form in this way in as little as 1,000 years, the models suggest, allowing them to trap the rapidly vanishing lighter gases. They also quickly reach an orbit-stabilizing mass that keeps them from death-marching into the sun.
As scientists continue to study planets inside of the solar system, as well as around other stars, they will better understand how gas giants formed.
Interesting Facts About Jupiter:
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Natural Satellites : 83
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Light speed from Sun: 82 min
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System. Just like Jupiter, it does not have a solid surface and is made entirely of gas.
Saturn is the most beloved planet in the Solar System, by both visual astronomers and amateur astrophotographers. Why? The rings of course!
Saturn has a total of 7 rings, each home to millions of chunks of ice and rocks orbiting the planet.
Saturn’s rings have gaps between them, one gap in particular, known as the Cassini Division, is very noticeable in both professional and amateur observations. The ring system is just about 30 feet thick, but extends up to 175,000 miles !
Life on Saturn is not possible, due to the lack of solid ground and its atmosphere is made up of hydrogen and helium . There is a much better chance to find traces of life on several of Saturn’s moons though, where water has been discovered and conditions are less harsh.
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Interesting Facts About Earth:
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Natural Satellites : 2
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Light speed from Sun: 11.73min
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and is smaller than Earth. Mars is believed to have been much more active in the past, with water and warm weather. Today, Mars is mostly a large desert with cold temperatures and a very thin atmosphere. After Earth, Mars is the most studied planet in our solar system and several landers have roamed its surface. As of 2021, we now even have a helicopter on the planet named Ingenuity!
Neptune: A Giant Stormy Blue Planet
– Day: 19 Earth hours
– Number of moons: 14
Neptune is approximately the same size as Uranus and is known for its supersonic strong winds. The planet is more than 30 times as far from the sun as Earth.
Neptune was the first planet predicted to exist by using math, rather than being visually detected. Irregularities in the orbit of Uranus led French astronomer Alexis Bouvard to suggest some other planet might be exerting a gravitational tug. German astronomer Johann Galle used calculations to help find Neptune in a telescope. Neptune is about 17 times as massive as Earth and has a rocky core.
Related: There’s something strange going on inside Neptune
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Interesting Facts About Mercury:
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Mercury is the fastest planet in the Solar System and completes an orbit around the Sun in just 88 Earth days going 29 miles per second.
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From the ground, the Sun would be three times larger and seven times brighter than it is from the surface of Earth.
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Mercury is only slightly larger than our moon. It is 2.6x smaller than Earth.
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2 NASA spacecraft explored Mercury, Mariner 10, and MESSENGER.
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Natural Satellites : 0
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Light speed from Sun: 5.97 min
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, between Mercury and the Earth. Venus has a very thick atmosphere that is full of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide that traps all the heat coming from the sun, making Venus the hottest planet in our solar system. Surface temperatures on Venus reach 475 degrees Celsius . The planet is made up of a rusty-colored surface that hosts thousands of volcanoes and extreme mountains.
Venus’s rotation is very interesting. The planet spins in the opposite direction of most other planets, and does so very slowly, making a day on Venus longer than a year!
Solar System Formation And Discovery
Approximately 4.5 billion years ago a dark cloud of gas and dust began to collapse. As it shrank, the cloud flattened into a swirling disk known as a solar nebula, according to NASA Science .
The heat and pressure eventually became so high that hydrogen atoms began to combine to form helium. The nuclear reactions released vast amounts of energy and our sun was formed.
The sun accumulated about 99% of the available matter and the remaining material further from the sun formed smaller clumps inside the spinning disk. Some of these clumps gained enough mass that their gravity shaped them into spheres, becoming planets, dwarf planets and moons. Other leftover pieces became asteroids, comets and smaller moons that make up our solar system.
Read more: How did the solar system form?
For millennia, astronomers have followed points of light that seemed to move among the stars. The ancient Greeks named them planets, meaning “wanderers.” Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were known in antiquity, and the invention of the telescope added the Asteroid Belt, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and many of these worlds’ moons. The dawn of the space age saw dozens of probes launched to explore our system, an adventure that continues today.
There have been five human-made objects so far, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, New Horizons, Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, that have crossed the threshold into interstellar space.
Related:How much of the solar system is made of interstellar stuff?
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Our Live Solar System Map
If you have our desktop version enabled on your computer, then the application shown above plots the position of the Earth and planets using data from this NASA’s JPL website and is accurate between 3000 BCE and 3000 CE. If you have our mobile version enabled then we’ll be showing you a simpler view of the solar system showing you the current planetary positions with the option of moving up to 30 days forwards or backwards.
Faq: Which Spacecraft Are Headed To Interstellar Space
Five spacecraft have achieved enough velocity to eventually travel beyond the boundaries of our solar system. Two of them reached the unexplored space between the stars after several decades in space.
- Voyager 1 went interstellar in 2012 and Voyager 2 joined it in 2018. Both spacecraft are still in communication with Earth. Both spacecraft launched in 1977.
- NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is currently exploring an icy region beyond Neptune called the Kuiper Belt. It eventually will leave our solar system.
- Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 also will ultimately travel silently among the stars. The spacecraft used up their power supplies decades ago.
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How Did The Sun Form
The solar system is anchored by our sun.
Before the solar system existed, a massive concentration of interstellar gas and dust created a molecular cloud that would form the sun’s birthplace. Cold temperatures caused the gas to clump together, growing steadily denser. The densest parts of the cloud began to collapse under their own gravity, perhaps with a nudge from a nearby stellar explosion, forming a wealth of young stellar objects known as protostars.
Gravity continued to collapse the material onto the infant solar system, creating a star and a disk of material from which the planets would form. Eventually, the newborn sun encompassed more than 99% of the solar system’s mass, according to NASA . When pressure inside the star grew so powerful that fusion kicked in, turning hydrogen to helium, the star began to blast a stellar wind that helped clear out the debris and stopped it from falling inward.
Although gas and dust shroud young stars in visible wavelengths, infrared telescopes have probed many clouds in the Milky Way galaxy to study the environment of other newborn stars. Scientists have applied what they’ve seen in other systems to our own star.
