Planetary Trio: Mars, Venus and Jupiter Cozy Up in Pre-Dawn Sky

Three of the most highly speculated planets of our solar system Jupiter, Venus and Mars are going to come together and create a attractive planetary spectacle.

A rare event, which will next happen in 2021, will be visible in the night skies starting tomorrow morning (26 October) until Thursday.

The triangular alignment of the three planets will be caused due to the planet’s orbit alignment. They are all set to group together within a circle of diameter five degrees.

The planets in our solar system orbit the sun in a single flat plane and so when we look into the sky, we see a narrow edgeway of that plane. This rare planetary phenomenon will unfurl from October 24 to 29. Different planets orbit the sun in different speeds. On Monday, Jupiter and Venus will be in a tight gathering, rising together in the east about 3:20 a.m., and will be almost halfway up in the east as day breaks at 6 a.m. Jupiter will only be about one degree (the width of two full moons) to the left of Venus.

Venus, Jupiter and Mars in the eastern sky on October 28, 2015.

Venus and Jupiter rank as the third-brightest and fourth-brightest celestial bodies in all the heavens, respectively, after the sun and moon.

Will you be trying to see the “planetary trio” tonight?

The spectacular alignment will be best-seen early morning, between 5 and 6am. They will look much brighter than surrounding stars.

“Jupiter is much farther from both Earth and Sun, but it’s vastly larger than Venus, which goes a long way toward making up for its greater distance and weaker illumination”.

You won’t need any special equipment to spot the planetary conjunction – the astronomy term for a close grouping of objects in the sky. You will also get to watch Saturn just after the sun sets, and Mercury will be visible just before sunrise this month.

The trio of planets will be visible in the sky in the east an hour before sunrise and it’s possible a few will also see Mercury below them just above the horizon, the Beckstrom Observatory reported.