The first unique space theater visible from the Czech Republic will take place on February 18 and 19. In the evening hours – usually after 18:00 – the planets meet above the west-southwest horizon Mercury, Venus a Saturn with a narrow crescent Months.
“The otherwise hard-to-observe Mercury will be at its greatest angular distance from the Sun. Under ideal conditions, it can be seen with the naked eye,” stated astronomer Petr Horálek from the University of Silesia in Opava. He added that the ideal observation point would be a hill further from the city.
The observation will also be unique because the arrangement of the planets and the Moon in the night sky will create an apparent arc. The shape is created by the movement of objects above the horizon during both days.
Planetary alignment
An even more significant spectacle occurs at the turn of February and March. On February 28 and March 1, a so-called planetary alignment of up to six planets can be seen from the Czech Republic. “The objects will be visible soon after sunset throughout February, but the best conditions will not occur due to their approach until the end of the month,” specified American astronomers National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
According to experts, people will see Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter. To see the distant Uranus a neptune must use binoculars. According to Star Walk the cosmic theater will be presented above the western horizon about thirty minutes after dark. Observation from high places undisturbed by city lights will be ideal.
In February, a planetary alignment of six planets will be visible:
Planetary alignments are named after the visual effect in which some of the planets appear to line up. However, it is not strictly a straight line, as some foreign media previously reported during the same event. “Objects will gather on one side from Sun looking from Country. It’s a nice, but not that exceptional, spectacle,” astronomer Jiří Dušek from the Brno Observatory and Planetarium told Deník.cz.
The head of the Brno observatory further stated that, on the contrary, a very rare spectacle will occur in September 2040. The planets will be angularly very close to each other. The five planets visible to the naked eye (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) will group together in the evening sky and be complemented by the crescent Moon.
How does a planetary alignment occur?
Planetary shows and alignments occur because bodies orbit the Sun in a relatively flat, disk-shaped plane, also known as the ecliptic. From Earth, people look at this plane from the inside and therefore according to it NASA sees an imaginary racetrack from the perspective of one of the competitors.
Although each planet orbits the Sun at a different speed and at a different distance, from Earth’s surface they can sometimes come to such a level that they appear to be next to each other.
Close encounters of three to five planets are usually observable, sometimes with other bright objects in the night sky. Six or more planets are rare.
What happens during a planetary alignment:
date:2026-02-12 04:30:00
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