Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn align in a straight line after 1000 years
New Delhi: A rare astronomical event took place in the last week of April where four planets, namely Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, will align in a straight line in the eastern sky for nearly an hour before sunrise.
The deputy director of Pathani Samanta Planetarium, Bhubaneswar, Subhendu Pattnaik, said, “During the last week of April 2022, a rare and unique planet alignment popularly known as planet parade will occur. Although there is no scientific definition for planet parade, it is being widely used in astronomy to denote an event that takes place when planets of the solar system line up in a row in the same area of the sky.”
Pattnaik further explained three common types of Planet Parades. The first planet parade is when planets line up on one side of the Sun, as seen above the plane of our solar system. The alignment of three planets on one side of the Sun is a common phenomenon, and can be seen for several days in a year. Similarly, the alignment of four planets occurs once a year, five planets once in nineteen years, and all eight planets align once in 170 years.
“Secondly, when certain planets appear in a small sector of the sky at the same time regardless of their visibility conditions from Earth, we term the event as a planet parade. A planet parade of this type last happened on April 18, 2002, and July 2020 when all planets of the Solar system that are visible to the naked eye lined up in a row in the evening sky,” he said.
Pattnaik explained that the third type is on rare occasions with favorable observation conditions of all or some planets. Such events are planet parades.
“During the last week of April 2022, a rare and unique planet parade will take place when Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn line up in the eastern sky around one hour before sunrise. It will be a planet parade of the third kind. The last such parade of these planets occurred in 947 AD, around 1,000 years ago,” he said.
“One hour before sunrise on April 26 and 27, the moon and the four planets will be visible within 30 degrees from the eastern horizon in a near-perfect straight line. If the conditions are right, one can see Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Saturn in a line without binoculars or telescopes. On April 30, the brightest planets, Venus and Jupiter, can be seen very close together. Venus will be 0.2 degrees south of Jupiter,” he added.
(Avya Mathur)
