Sky Watch: Early morning is the best time to see the planet parade - St. Paul Pioneer Press

Currently, two planets are visible in the early evening sky and three planets in the early morning sky.

In the very early evening sky you can spot both Mars and Mercury. The reason I say early is that Mercury never gets all that far away from the sun because it has such a tight orbit. The rest of this month, Mercury will be at its farthest point east of the sun, something astronomers call greatest eastern elongation. It’s not all that great, though, because Mercury sets a little over an hour after the sun does in the southwestern sky.

There’s not much to be seen in regard to Mercury, even with a telescope because of the blurring effects of Earth’s atmosphere close to the horizon. You should be able to spot that it’s crescent shaped, however. Only Mercury and Venus, planets that orbit the sun within the Earth’s orbit, go through phase changes, just like our moon.

Mars is higher in the southwestern sky as darkness sets in. It’s easy to spot since it’s the brightest star-like object in that part of the sky. There’s not much to see on 4,000-mile-wide Mars, either, even with a larger telescope, because it’s so far away from Earth right now, more than 158 million miles away.

The best planet show is in the morning sky. If you’re up and out the door from 5 to shortly after 6 a.m., you can easily spot the planets Jupiter, Saturn and Venus lined neatly in a row in the low south-to-southeastern sky.

Venus is by far the brightest of the three planets, and the lowest in the southeast sky. It’s brighter than the brightest star we ever see in the nighttime sky. Currently it’s about 93 million miles from the Earth, but despite its proximity and brightness, there’s not much to see on Venus, even with a large telescope.

Venus is completely covered by a thick and poisonous atmosphere that’s highly reflective of the sun’s light. That’s why it’s so bright. In fact, it’s so bright that it can cast a shadow if you’re viewing from an extremely dark place. The one thing you can see with Venus is that it’s crescent-shaped right now, just as Mercury is in the southwestern evening twilight.

The next brightest planet in the southeast pre-twilight sky is Jupiter, shining to the upper right of Venus. Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. It’s 88,000 miles in diameter and about 511 million miles from Earth right now. With even with a small telescope or a good pair of binoculars, you can resolve the disk of the great planet, and up to four of its larger moons — Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto — orbiting Jupiter in periods of two to 17 days.

Next you’ll be seeing red in our planet parade. The planet Mars, the second brightest star-like object in the evening and the closest planet to Earth, is dominating the low southern sky at a distance of just 78 million miles away. With the naked eye, you can easily detect its orange-red hue, the result of oxidation of the surface.

Between Venus and Jupiter in the early morning planet parade this month is the prettiest planet, Saturn, with its gorgeous ring system. Even though it’s more than a billion miles from Earth right now, you can still see Saturn’s rings with a small telescope. Saturn’s rings stretch out over 150,000 miles in diameter, more than halfway between the Earth and our moon. As wide as the ring system is, the entire ring system is only about 50 miles thick at the most!

The waning crescent moon also joins the early morning planet parade. As it progresses eastward in its 27.5-day orbit around the Earth, it will find itself right next to Jupiter early Wednesday morning. That should make for quite a sight. On Friday morning, there will be a delightful celestial hug with Saturn. Enjoy the pre-breakfast show!

CLASSES

7-9 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 26, at Princeton Middle School in Princeton, Minn. For more information and reservations, call 763-389-4789 or go to princeton.cr3.rschooltoday.com/public/home.

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