Look Up! A Rare Celestial Event Is Visible This Week In Maricopa

A starry night over a collapsed grain silo in Salome, Ariz. Jan. 15, 2023. [David Iversen]

Backyard stargazers are in for a treat this week.

While on most nights, you may spot one or two planets, this month you’re able to see five planets with the naked eye. Next Friday, is the grand finale, a “grand parade of planets” — if the conditions are right, you’ll be able to see seven planets lined up: Saturn, Mercury, Neptune, Venus, Uranus, Jupiter and Mars.

According to Starwalk, a star tracking app, a parade of planets is when all seven planets group together on one side of the sun, making them visible together “in a line” for a short time.

“It just happens that the way things are lined up in the solar system at the moment, all of the bright planets are available after sunset,” University of Arizona’s Director of Undergraduate Studies in Astronomy, Thomas Fleming, told InMaricopa. “Normally, you have to get up at three o’clock in the morning to see a planet.”

How to see the planetary parade

You can see most of the planets aligned now, said Fleming. To see the full effect is going to take a bit of luck.

The planets are just above the horizon, as the sun sets. To see the planets with a naked eye, they’ll need to be 10 degrees or higher above the horizon, and you’ll have to be in a spot away from mountains or buildings.

Even if you do find that spot, Earth’s atmosphere near the ground dims celestial objects as they rise or set. Sometimes bright planets are hard to see when they’re too low, as light gets scattered as it punches through the earth’s atmosphere to your eye.

To have the best chance of seeing this parade, you need true dark sky. From Maricopa, the nearest true dark sky is along State Route 238 toward Gila Bend.

The Arizona Association of Astronomy is having a viewing party on Feb. 28 at Tonopah High School at 38201 W. Indian School Road. They’ll have telescopes set up for public viewing.

The next ‘great parade of planets’ won’t happen until 2035.

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