Look up: Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus to Align with the Moon this Friday

Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus have aligned in the evening sky and will remain major fixtures in the evening sky for the rest of December, but the trio will be joined by a newcomer this week.

Nighttime Stargazing

December is a wonderful month for nighttime stargazing because of the easy-to-find planets and the coming peak of the Geminid meteor shower. The one caveat is that the weather during the long December nights may be erratic, with cold temperatures ordinary on clear nights.

The crescent moon will join the show this week, finally falling in line with Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus, providing a fantastic opportunity to witness the planetary alignment.

The moon began the week close to Venus, and it will continue to climb up the chain as the week unfolds, passing past Saturn and Jupiter. Photographers and stargazers using telescopes will be able to observe a planet and the moon in the same field of vision during these near approaches.

The moon will be near the top of the line by Friday evening, emerging in the southwestern sky just after dark.

Celestial Alignment

This celestial alignment will be visible throughout the planet, even where light pollution obscures fainter stars. The sole need for viewing the spectacle is clear skies. However, a telescope or binoculars can reveal some of Jupiter's and Saturn's larger moons.

Due to a far-reaching storm that will extend from the Rockies to the Appalachians, clouds are a worry for vast parts of the central and eastern United States on Friday evening.

Those who go outside to observe the cosmic alignment should also look for a few shooting stars.

Gemeinid Meteor

The Geminid meteor shower peaks on the evenings of December 13 and 14; however, some meteors will be seen in the nights preceding up to the shower's peak. It's also one of the few annual meteor showers that last the whole night, with some meteors visible as early as dusk.

The Geminids, unlike the planetary alignment, cannot be seen readily in areas where humans have caused light pollution. Thus people are invited to go to a darker location to enjoy the astronomical light display.

Planetary Alignment

The eight primary planets of the Solar System can never come into perfect alignment due to the orientation and inclination of their orbits. They didn't appear in the same section of the sky in almost 1,000 years, in the year AD 949, and they won't do so again until May 6, 2492.

Fortunately, the brightest planets take up places in the night sky around every half century or so, giving the sense of being in a straight line. The last good show occurred in April 2002, when Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus, and Mercury were strung like a cosmic necklace above the western horizon, with a crescent moon at its center. A similar alignment will occur in 30 years, on September 8, 2040.

Implications

If you're concerned about the gravitational implications of such an alignment, don't be: the additional pull on the Earth is insignificant. However, some alignments are beneficial. NASA used a unique arrangement of the planets in the 1970s to send space probes on a 'grand tour of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune with little effort. Only once every 175 years can such an alignment occur. Fortunately, it arrived just as NASA scientists figured out how to utilize it.

Also Read: NASA Plans to Deflect Asteroids to Defend the Planet from Cosmic Disaster

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Tags Skywatch, astronomy, planets, moon