Moon, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Milky Way
Image Credit & Copyright:
Mihail Minkov
It is not a coincidence that planets line up.
That's because all of the
planets orbit the
Sun in (nearly)
a single sheet called the plane of the
ecliptic.
When viewed from inside that plane -- as
Earth dwellers are likely to do --
the planets all appear confined to a
single band.
It is a coincidence, though, when
three of the brightest planets all appear in nearly the same direction.
Such a coincidence was captured about a month ago.
Featured above,
Earth's Moon,
Mars,
Saturn, and
Jupiter were all
imaged together,
just before sunrise, from the
Black Sea coast of
Bulgaria.
A second band is
visible diagonally across this image -- the central band of our
Milky Way Galaxy.
If you wake up early, you will find that these same planets
remain visible in the morning sky this month, too.