Planet parade: Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn to align after 1,000 years this week

April will end with a rare astronomical event as four planets- Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will align in a straight line in the eastern sky after 1,000 years. According to Subhendu Pattnaik, deputy director, of Pathani Samanta Planetarium in Bhubaneshwar, this alignment will occur on April 26 and 27 and last for about one hour before sunrise. Speaking with news agency ANI, Pattnaik said, "During the last week of April 2022, a rare and unique planet alignment will occur, which is called 'planet parade'. Although there is no scientific explanation for planet parade, it is being widely used to denote an event that takes place when planets of the solar system line up in a row in the same area of the sky."

Pattnaik explains 'planet parade'

In his interview with ANI, Subhendu Pattnaik explained the three most common types of planet parades. He said that the first kind of planet parade is when planets line up on one side of the sun as seen up above the plane of our solar system. He added that the alignment of three planets on one side of the sun is very common and can be spotted on multiple occasions in a single year.

Moreover, the alignment of four planets occurs once a year whereas five planets fall in a straight line every nineteen years. Surprisingly, all of the eight planets of our solar system also align together but only once every 170 years. "Secondly, when some planets appear in a small sector of the sky at the same time regardless of their visibility conditions, from Earth's point of view, we term the event also as a planet parade. A planet parade of this type last happened on April 18, 2002, and July 2020 when all planets of the solar system that are visible to the naked eye lined up in a row in the evening sky", Pattnaik told ANI. 

According to him, the third type of planet parade can be seen on rare occasions, and that too when there are favourable conditions for spotting either all or just some of the planets. He reiterated that spotting three aligned planets in the same part of the sky is pretty common in one year. "During the last week of April 2022, a rare and unique planet parade will take place when Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will line up in the eastern sky around one hour before sunrise. This will be a planet parade of the third kind as described above. The last such parade of these planets occurred in 947 AD, around 1,000 years ago", Pattnaik said.

He added that the moon along with the aforementioned four planets will be visible within 30 degrees from the eastern horizon in a near-perfect straight line also one hour before sunrise on the said dates.