A planetary alignment — or planet parade — is several planets in the same part of the sky at once, as seen from Earth. Here are the upcoming ones with dates and planets, which of those planets you can really expect to see, the parades since 2022, and each one seen from above in the orrery, where you can watch how the planets have really arranged themselves around the Sun.
Next planet parade: 14 Nov 2026 — Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter in the morning sky, before sunrise (in 13 days). Mercury (17° from the Sun) can be seen only between about 4°S and 58°N; Venus (29°) only north of about 48°S.
Today (1 Nov 2026) the five naked-eye planets are spread across 217° of sky. Evening sky: Saturn. Morning sky: Mars and Jupiter. Lost in the Sun’s glare: Mercury and Venus. See every planet’s position right now or what is up tonight where you are.
Dates from Star Walk, NASA and Wikipedia, each checked against the orrery’s orbital model. That check is geometric: it confirms every listed planet is on the stated side of the Sun, not that you will see it. So each parade also says where its planets pass the night sky page’s visibility test (at least 5° up while the sky is dark enough for the planet’s brightness) on the night of the date, checked every 2° of latitude from 54°S to 60°N at eight longitudes. “Only between about 20°S and 26°N” means the planet passed somewhere in that band and nowhere outside it, so the edges are good to a few degrees; “only just” means it passed at only some of the longitudes, and “barely” at one or two. Near midsummer the sky at high latitudes never gets dark enough for the fainter planets, which is why many of them stop somewhere between 45° and 60° in June or December. The strip under each entry shows where the planets sit relative to the Sun on that date: left of the Sun is the morning sky, right of it the evening sky, and the further out, the longer the planet is up after sunset or before sunrise. A hollow dot is a planet that passed nowhere; a faded one passed only at some latitudes. Uranus and Neptune still need binoculars or a telescope even when they pass. Parades last a week or more either side of the date given, though Mercury moves quickly.
Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter. A small four-planet gathering in the morning sky.
On the night: Mercury (17° from the Sun) can be seen only between about 4°S and 58°N; Venus (29°) only north of about 48°S.
What you can see from your location · See it from above in the orrery · Source: Star Walk
Mercury, Venus, Saturn and Neptune. Four planets before sunrise; Neptune needs a telescope.
On the night: Mercury (11° from the Sun) and Saturn (9°) are too close to the Sun to see; Venus (30°) can be seen only south of about 42°N; Neptune (23°) only south of about 14°N.
What you can see from your location · See it from above in the orrery · Source: Star Walk
Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Five planets in the morning sky.
On the night: Mercury (13° from the Sun) is too close to the Sun to see; Venus (11°) can be seen only between about 2°N and 8°N (barely); Saturn (74°) only south of about 56°N; Uranus (33°) only south of about 46°N; Neptune (94°) only south of about 54°N.
What you can see from your location · See it from above in the orrery · Source: Star Walk
Mercury, Venus and Mars. A mini parade of three planets after sunset.
On the night: Venus (10° from the Sun) is too close to the Sun to see; Mercury (25°) can be seen only south of about 26°N; Mars (46°) only south of about 44°N.
What you can see from your location · See it from above in the orrery · Source: Star Walk
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Six planets in the evening sky on Christmas Day; Jupiter is the one missing, over in the morning sky.
On the night: Mercury (8° from the Sun) is too close to the Sun to see; Mars (19°) can be seen only between about 20°S and 26°N.
What you can see from your location · See it from above in the orrery · Source: Star Walk
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Neptune. Five planets after sunset, two weeks after the Christmas parade.
On the night: Mars (16° from the Sun) is too close to the Sun to see; Mercury (16°) can be seen only between about 22°S and 26°N; Neptune (76°) only north of about 52°S.
What you can see from your location · See it from above in the orrery · Source: Star Walk
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. All five naked-eye planets before sunrise in late October 2028 (NASA gives the month, not a day); Saturn, near opposition, is up all night.
On the night: Mercury (16° from the Sun) can be seen only between about 2°N and 58°N; Venus (35°) only north of about 44°S; Mars (62°) only north of about 48°S; Jupiter (19°) only north of about 14°S.
What you can see from your location · See it from above in the orrery · Source: NASA
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. All seven planets on the evening side of the Sun — the next listed “great” parade after 2025, on paper (all seven are on the evening side from about 8 January to 10 February 2034). NASA expects five planets visible at once after sunset in late February 2034, with Venus and Mercury hard to see.
On the night: Venus (7° from the Sun) is too close to the Sun to see; Mercury (14°) can be seen only near 10°N (barely) and between about 22°N and 40°N (only just); Mars (61°) only north of about 48°S; Jupiter (27°) only north of about 46°S; Neptune (63°) only north of about 50°S.
What you can see from your location · See it from above in the orrery · Source: Star Walk
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The five naked-eye planets packed into about 9° of sky after sunset — the tightest naked-eye cluster of the century (Wikipedia: within 7° of longitude on 12 September).
On the night: Mercury (21° from the Sun) can be seen only south of about 18°N; Venus (27°) only south of about 44°N; Mars (30°) only south of about 30°N; Jupiter (20°) only south of about 22°N; Saturn (25°) only south of about 36°N.
What you can see from your location · See it from above in the orrery · Source: Wikipedia
| Date | Planets | Sky | Relative to the Sun | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6: Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune Jupiter (10° from the Sun) is too close to the Sun to see; Mercury (15°) can be seen only between about 8°S and 36°N. | Morning | See it from aboveSource: Star Walk | ||
| 6: Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune Mercury (12° from the Sun) is too close to the Sun to see; Venus (13°) can be seen only between about 6°S and 44°N; Saturn (22°) only between about 20°S and 54°N; Neptune (21°) only between about 14°S and 54°N. | Evening | See it from aboveSource: Star Walk | ||
| 7: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune Saturn (10° from the Sun) is too close to the Sun to see; Mercury (15°) can be seen only between the equator and about 48°N; Venus (31°) only north of about 32°S; Uranus (74°) only north of about 52°S; Neptune (19°) only between about 2°N and 44°N. | Evening | See it from aboveSource: Wikipedia | ||
| 6: Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune Venus (47° from the Sun) can be seen only north of about 52°S; Saturn (45°) only north of about 46°S; Neptune (56°) only north of about 48°S. | Evening | See it from aboveSource: Wikipedia | ||
| 6: Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune Mercury (13° from the Sun) and Jupiter (11°) are too close to the Sun to see; Mars (48°) can be seen only south of about 46°N; Saturn (85°) only south of about 52°N; Uranus (19°) only between about 34°S and 10°N; Neptune (74°) only south of about 50°N. | Morning | See it from aboveSource: The Independent | ||
| 5: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus Mercury (11° from the Sun) and Jupiter (11°) are too close to the Sun to see; Venus (36°) can be seen only north of about 46°S; Uranus (39°) only north of about 42°S. | Evening | See it from aboveSource: The Guardian | ||
| 7: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune Mercury (21° from the Sun) can be seen only south of about 34°N; Venus (31°) only south of about 52°N; Mars (71°) only south of about 56°N; Saturn (128°) only south of about 56°N; Uranus (45°) only south of about 48°N; Neptune (98°) only south of about 54°N. | Morning | See it from aboveSource: Wikipedia |
All the planets orbit the Sun in nearly the same plane, so from Earth they always appear along one line across the sky — the ecliptic, the same track the Sun and Moon follow. That is why a group of planets looks like a “line-up”. What makes a parade is simply that several planets happen to be on the same side of the Sun as seen from Earth, so they can share the same evening or morning sky. That is not enough to see them all: a planet also has to be far enough from the Sun to stand clear of the twilight, and high enough above your horizon, which depends on your latitude and the season. NASA notes that “planet parade” is not a technical term, and Wikipedia that it is “not a true alignment in space”: seen from above, the planets are spread around the Sun, as the “from above” links on this page show.
Sizes are loose. Star Walk calls three planets a mini parade, four small, five or six large, and all seven a great parade, and counts every planet gathering in a single quarter of the sky only seven times in this millennium. Three- and four-planet gatherings happen most years; five or six every few years; all seven a few times a decade. Neptune is always too faint for the naked eye and Uranus is at the very limit, a faint dot from a dark site if you know exactly where to look, so a “seven-planet” parade is at most five bright planets plus two you find with binoculars or a telescope, and often fewer, because one or two of the five are lost in the Sun’s glare. That is also why sources disagree about how many parades there are: Wikipedia counts the next six-planet parade after 2025 as 2040, while Star Walk’s list includes the telescope-only planets and finds six on 25 December 2027.
Planets are easy to tell from stars: they usually shine with a steadier light, twinkling less except close to the horizon, and Venus and Jupiter outshine every star. Mercury is always low in the twilight and needs a clear horizon; Uranus (binoculars) and Neptune (telescope) need a chart or an app.
The orrery can also find alignments in the physical sense — planets bunched together around the Sun in heliocentric longitude, which is what a top-down view shows. The tightest of them come close to what astronomers strictly mean by an alignment, a syzygy (say SIZ-ih-jee, from the Greek for “yoked together”): three or more bodies in a nearly straight line. These are rarer and older than any parade. Two entries, in 1953 BC and 2040, are gatherings in Earth’s sky instead, for comparison. Each link opens the orrery on that day, looking down on the solar system:
These come from scanning the same orbital model day by day across 3000 BC – 3000 AD; the whole list is in the orrery’s “Jump to a notable alignment” menu. Dates before 1582 are in the proleptic Gregorian calendar, today’s calendar run backwards, as the orrery shows them, so they differ from the Julian dates in history books (by 17 days in 1953 BC). Treat the ancient ones as good to about a day: the model runs on uniform time, while Earth’s spin has slowed by an amount known only roughly, so by 2000 BC the model’s clock is about half a day away from time kept by the Sun, and its times of day are not to be trusted.
Several planets in the same part of the sky at the same time, as seen from Earth. They appear along one line because they share an orbital plane; they are not lined up in space. Seen from above the solar system, the planets are spread around the Sun. Being on the right side of the Sun does not mean you can see them all: a planet close to the Sun is lost in the twilight.
The card at the top of this page always names the next one. After the six-planet parade of 12 August 2026 come a small one on 14 November 2026 (Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter before sunrise), five planets on 2 July 2027 (morning), six on 25 December 2027 (evening), five on 8 January 2028 (evening) and all five naked-eye planets before sunrise in late October 2028. The next listed parade of all seven planets is 3 February 2034 (all seven are on the evening side of the Sun from about 8 January to 10 February), although on that date Venus is too close to the Sun to see and Mercury can only just be seen, from between about 22°N and 40°N; NASA expects five planets visible at once after sunset later that month. On 8 September 2040 the five naked-eye planets crowd into about nine degrees of sky after sunset, and all five can be seen only south of about 18°N.
Three or four planets most years; five or six every few years; all seven on one side of the Sun only a few times a decade — the parade lists give 24 June 2022, 28 February 2025 and 3 February 2034 — and even then one or two are often too close to the Sun to see. Star Walk counts all the planets in a single quarter of the sky just seven times this millennium.
No. The combined gravitational pull of all the other planets on Earth is tiny compared with the Moon’s, whatever their arrangement, so alignments have no measurable effect on tides, earthquakes, the weather or people. Their significance is that several planets are easy to see in one sweep of the sky.
Usually some of it, but not always all of it: it depends on where you are. The arrangement is the same from everywhere on Earth, but a planet has to stand clear of the twilight and the horizon to be seen. One within about 15–20° of the Sun is often lost in the glare, how high the line of planets stands changes with latitude and season, and near the poles the Sun may not set or rise at all. Evening parades are seen after local sunset and morning parades before local sunrise, on the date given and often for a week or more either side. The ecliptic stands steeper from the tropics, and on spring evenings or autumn mornings, which lifts low planets such as Mercury clear of the horizon. Each parade above says which planets are too close to the Sun to see, or hidden from some latitudes, and the night sky page shows what is above your own horizon after dark on any date.
A conjunction is two objects passing close together in the sky — the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on 21 December 2020, for example, which recurs about every twenty years (next in late 2040). A planet parade is several planets spread along the ecliptic in the same evening or morning sky; they can be tens of degrees apart and still count.
Syzygy (pronounced SIZ-ih-jee) is the astronomers’ word for three or more bodies lined up in a nearly straight line. The Sun, Earth and Moon form one at every new and full moon, and an eclipse happens when that line is close to exact. A planet at opposition, or passing in front of the Sun, is in syzygy with the Sun and Earth. A planet parade is not one: the planets only share a part of Earth’s sky and are spread around the Sun in space. The tightest groupings seen from above come close: on 3 October 600 AD Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars were within 1° of longitude around the Sun, and within about 3° once their small tilts above and below the plane are counted.