Once-in-a-millennium planetary parade to light up tonight’s sky
The evening sky is set to present an exceptionally rare celestial alignment today, as several planets form a compact configuration that will be visible for a limited time and is not expected to repeat for centuries, Qazinform News Agency correspondent reports.
A planetary parade is an astronomical event when several planets appear close together in the sky from Earth’s point of view. This happens because the planets follow similar paths around the Sun, called the ecliptic, allowing them to line up visually.
According to the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the culmination of the planetary configuration occurs today at 20:48 Astana time.
At that moment, Mercury aligns closely with the Sun by longitude, while Venus and Mars form a horizontal axis on either side. The planetary parade will last for about a day.
This is the first of only six such close alignments of Mercury, Venus, and Mars expected in the entire third millennium. The next comparable event is forecast for June 2235.
Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported on how the first hotel on the Moon could work.
