7-planet parade will be visible on last day of February
Attention, stargazers: Another celestial phenomenon is set to appear in the night sky Friday evening.
Seven planets -- Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Mercury, Saturn and Venus -- will be visible simultaneously and look like they're all aligned when seen from Earth after sunset.
An extraordinary event also known as planetary alignment or a planet parade, this February's seven-planet parade features one more celestial body than last month's six-planet alignment.
"You have to do it right at sunset and you have to be able to see the eastern horizon very clearly because those three planets that are very close to the sun right now are pretty hard to catch," Dr. Gerard van Belle, an astronomer and the director of science at Lowell Observatory, told ABC News of the best time to watch the phenomenon.
"Mercury is always hard to catch because it orbits so close to the sun. And Saturn, Neptune just happened to line up right there as well. And things like Neptune and Uranus, you'll need a telescope or binoculars to see, but other than that, Venus and Jupiter and Mars should all be really bright and easy to pick off just with your eyes."
According to NASA, multi-planet lineups are visible "every few years," but a seven-planet alignment is particularly uncommon, as each planet's orbit varies, with some moving more quickly and Mercury, in particular, being visible during its 88-day orbit for only "a couple of weeks at a time" each year.
The solar system has eight planets overall – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun and Earth is the third planet from the sun, while Neptune is the furthest. There are also five additional celestial bodies called dwarf planets, including Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake.
The next chance to catch a planetary alignment after this month, according to NASA, will be in late August when a four-planet parade will be visible before sunrise.
