One of the things I have enjoyed over the 22 years of writing the Night Sky column for Space.com is alerting readers to hoaxes or celestial lies that commonly circulate on the Internet.
Although I have done my best to keep readers away from such misconceptions, I am still amazed that so many people accept them as fact. Some of these claims, which have spread widely on the Internet in recent years, have almost been proven wrong. So much so that you might think that in our modern, technological 21st century world, very few people could be fooled.
But in reality – and I think most people today operate under the mantra “If it’s on social media, it must be true” – a surprisingly large number of people are fooled and take these promotions at face value.
And then unfortunately they distribute them widely to their family and friends.
Relating to: What equipment do you need to see and photograph planets?
Previous celestial fakes
The most famous, of course, was the annual “Mars Hoax,” which reared its ugly head every August for nearly a decade. Since the Red Planet’s historically close approach to Earth occurred in August 2003, a fake story began circulating on the Internet in the years that followed; this story implied that on a particular night in late August, Mars would appear in the sky at the same size. like a full moon. It was completely wrong, of course, but there were countless people every year who truly believed it would happen!
Later in 2015, a story shared widely online claimed that January 4, 2015 was “Zero Gravity Day”, a date when people on Earth would be able to experience weightlessness if they jumped into the air at a specific moment. One has to wonder how many people around the world actually tried to float in the air that day.
Later that year, a fake news website named Dünya I would go into the dark Just before 3 a.m. on November 15, 2015, the eerie darkness would finally lift at 4:45 p.m. on November 30.
Here we go again
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When these kinds of crazy stories pop up online, I get questions from people asking for clarification (“Is this true?”), or in the case of the Mars Hoax, questions like: “What’s the best place and time I can find it? Can you see this?”
To that end, I’m getting a feeling of Déjà vu, as an increasing number of people have been messaging me lately about a so-called “rare event.” “Gateway of Planets” It will be visible before sunrise on June 3.
Supporting this claim is a graphic that circulated widely, particularly on Facebook, accompanied by comments such as the following:
“This sounds exciting!”
“This is something I’m looking forward to.”
“There have been quite a lot of astral phenomena lately” and
“Another chance to see something extraordinary.”
These last two comments undoubtedly refer to the recent solar eclipse and northern lights show.
And now many people are under the impression that another spectacular celestial event is approaching on the first Monday in June.
But it is not like that.
Creator unknown
First, let’s examine the ersatz chart in question. There is no reference to who designed it, it just sits “out there” for all to see. It shows six planets positioned along a diagonal line extending upward from the horizon of a treescape skyline (direction not specified). And the planets are all shown as we would see them through a telescope.
Unfortunately, a certain percentage of the population doesn’t realize that you can’t see the planets as disks with the naked eye (for proof, go back to The Mars Hoax) … and you can’t see Saturn’s famous rings either, for that matter. To your eyes alone, brighter planets rarely appear as twinkling stars.
So those who plan to wake up early and go out on June 3, expecting to see Jupiter’s swollen disk or Saturn’s rings at a glance, will be quite disappointed, to say the least.
Where are they?
And seeing some of these planets would be problematic in itself.
Mercury and Jupiter, for example, will be very close to the sun’s position in the sky and will therefore likely be masked by the bright glow of morning twilight. Perhaps binoculars will allow you to catch a glimpse of these two worlds, but in addition to trying to see them in the early light of dawn, they will also be extremely low on the east-northeast horizon; Both will rise just half an hour before sunrise.
So unless you have a nice, flat horizon with no obstructions (like distant buildings or trees), you can probably forget about seeing the solar system’s smallest planet (Mercury) next to the largest planet (Jupiter).
Next comes Uranus, which is visible to the naked eye, but only under very dark, unpolluted skies; in fact, it is close to the threshold most people can see without using any optical aid. Of course, to see such a faint object you need to know exactly where it is in the sky; A good star map will definitely help. But all of this is actually a moot point on June 3, as Uranus will rise just an hour before sunrise, when morning twilight will be well advanced. So, we do not have the chance to see Uranus like Mercury and Jupiter.
Interestingly, whoever created this deceptive sky chart left out the most obvious of celestial sights: the Moon. On Monday morning, June 3, early risers will see a beautiful, waning crescent hanging low in the eastern sky. At around 4 a.m. local daylight time, there will be a relatively bright orange light about half a dozen degrees to the right of it; This will be Mars. Finally! A planet that can be clearly seen without the aid of binoculars or a telescope.
Next comes Neptune, the farthest planet from the sun; Neptune, which is too faint to be detected by the naked eye, is located an average of 4.8 billion miles from the sun. It is six times fainter than Uranus. So unless you have access to a dark sky, a star map, and at least a good pair of binoculars or a telescope, you have no chance of seeing that planet.
Finally, there’s Saturn rising from the east-southeast around 2 a.m. But its best view comes as the eastern sky begins to lighten, with Saturn hanging high in the southeast. Again, the rings are not visible unless you use a telescope; When viewed with the naked eye, Saturn appears as a relatively bright light shining with a yellowish-white hue.
So if you go out around 3:30 or 4 a.m. on a Monday morning, don’t expect to be amazed by the planet parade. What you will probably see is a crescent moon and a bright orange “star” shining to the right of it (Mars), and further away to the right is another relatively bright “star” (Saturn) shining with a yellowish-white hue.
Not “rare” at all!
This doesn’t mean the planets won’t align. Although you won’t be able to visually see four of them (Mercury, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune), they will all still be there and actually positioned along a straight line in space.
This is because all planets revolve around the sun in roughly the same orbital plane. When viewed from here on Earth, this orbital plane is known as the ecliptic and all the planets appear to move on this plane. And from our cosmic vantage point on Earth, it’s not uncommon to see large numbers of planets lined up along the ecliptic.
Wait until next winter
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And if you want to see a truly eye-catching planetary alignment – four bright planets in a single glimpse, plus a beautiful waxing crescent moon as a bonus – then be sure to take a look at the early evening sky next winter. Shortly after 18:00 on January 31, 2025 and/or February 1.
On the first night, you will catch the Moon in the lower right corner of Saturn, and the next night the moon will have passed in the lower left corner of dazzling Venus. Meanwhile, high in the southeast, Jupiter will shine with a bright silvery light among the stars of Taurus Taurus, accompanied by the beautiful open star clusters of the Hyades and Pleiades.
And finally, in the eastern sky, forming a prominent triangle with the bright stars Pollux and Castor of Gemini, amber Mars will appear six times brighter than it appears to us now.
Compared to all this, the exuberant “Parade of Planets” on June 3 can best be described in one word: overwhelming.
Joe Rao is an instructor and visiting professor in New York Hayden Planetarium. writes about astronomy Natural History magazine, Farmer’s Almanac and other publications.