Observers in the Arab world are preparing for the alignment of four bright planets in the morning sky just before sunrise on Wednesday, April 20, 2022, and the conditions for its visibility will be better than the triple alignment last March.
The experts of the Astronomical Society in Jeddah confirmed that all the planets, which will form the alignment, which are Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and Venus, will be seen with the naked eye above the southeastern horizon, and the horizon must be completely exposed to see Jupiter, which will be at a lower altitude than the other planets.
The experts stated that the alignment of the planets is an astronomical event that takes place when a group of planets of the solar system appear in a row approximately in the same region of the sky, as seen from Earth and in space, being on the same side of the sun.
The experts added that the latest planetary alignments occurred on April 18, 2002, and then on July 4, 2020, when all the planets of the solar system that can be seen with the naked eye were lined up in a row in the evening sky, and such planetary alignments will be repeated in 2040 and 2854.
There are rare cases where there are very good viewing conditions for seeing all the planets of the solar system in one night, for the inner planets (Mercury and Venus), the best viewing conditions occur near their greatest elongation, and for the outer planets (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) At the time before and after the encounter situation.
It must be known that the alignment of the planets on one line should not be taken in the literal sense. The planets never line up in a perfectly straight line, since they do not all revolve around the sun in the same plane, but rather in different orbits, so they will never line up identically.
It is noteworthy that this alignment occurs days before an exceptional coupling between Venus and Jupiter, where the order of the planets will change after the day of the alignment, as Jupiter will rise away from the horizon and approach Venus in preparation for the best coupling that will be seen with the naked eye at the end of April and early May 2022.