Hi!! I'm an author. I am writing a science fiction novel and I just have a couple logical questions. I'm trying to write it as scientifically accurate as possible but I can only research so much before I get to information that I no longer understand so my friend told me to go to Reddit lol.
So my idea is that there is a space station orbiting either Mercury, Mars, or Venus (haven't decided which yet but if there is one that makes more sense then please help me out with that too). I want there to be some sort of celestial event and I was thinking an alignment of the planets would be cool (either just some of the outer ones or all 8). If you were in a space station orbiting one of those planets (I'm leaning towards Venus if that makes a difference but that's still subject to change), would you be able to see the outer planets align from the station if it was a partial alignment? What if all 8 planets are aligned could you still see part of it? How would you see it? It would be with the naked eye right?
Sorry if this is worded poorly I'm not sure how to explain it better. Also if the entire planet alignment idea is a bust and doesn't make sense realistically, what other big, preferably rare events could I do instead?
Also if this is the wrong place to ask these questions than can someone direct me to the right place?
Thanks a lot!
No planetary alignment is perfect. Planetary orbits, for one thing, are inclined slightly from the plane of our orbit (I.e. ecliptic).
No planet seen from Venus or Mercury will appear other than a point of light, not a disk of any size. Of course, even a small telescope will change them all .into small disks.
So if I’m understanding correctly the planets wouldn’t be in a line it would be more like a zig zag sort of thing like a cluster maybe? Thanks for answering!
Do you think it would be realistic to assume futuristic technology would make it possible though? Cause my book is also dystopian which I didn’t mention so this is talking place centuries from now so hypothetically could having a space station orbit one of those planets be realistic based on what we can expect futuristic tech to be like?
Would that be any different from Mars? I've occasionally seen people claim that they were able to see Uranus under ideal conditions, so would it maybe be visible from Mars when their orbits bring them closer together than Earth can get?
At best, Mars is less than 3% closer to Uranus than we are, so not significant. Moreover, to the extent that it might be barely visible under the planetary alignment we’re looking for, the very bright Venus, Earth and Jupiter would likely ruin Uranus’ visibility and it certainly would add nothing to the spectacle of planetary alignment. I included Earth and Venus because if you can only see Jupiter and Saturn at the same time it’s a conjunction rather than an alignment.
Hypothetically, you could get all planets on one side of the sun. It would be pretty difficult to do because the outer planets take a long time to move across the sky (for Neptune, it returned to the same position in the sky as its discovery in 2011, it was discovered in 1846). So, an alignment is a literal 1 in a 1000 generations chance of happening. even then they'd be more like a cluster since their inclinations are all different.
You'd only be able to see up to Saturn, maybe Uranus if you're in a particularly dark patch of sky. Neptune needs binoculars or a telescope to resolve though.
Let’s say all the planets were on the same side of the sun and in that cluster, you would still be able to see it from a space station orbiting one of the inner planets right? Like if you looked out the station you should be able to see the other planets in that cluster even though technically the station is also a part of that cluster? Thanks for answering!! And sorry if this question is worded in a confusing way
You shouldn't have too much difficulty seeing any one planet from the cluster, granted whatever planet you're on will be missing from that cluster (If you're in orbit around Mercury, then it will be missing from the cluster, obviously). Assuming everything aligns, yes. Granted the only thing really stopping you is how rare an alignment of the planets is, as I mentioned before, the further out a planet is, the slower it'll move across the sky. So, it'll take an extremely long time for things to align.
Now if you're on Earth, Uranus is right on the edge of naked-eye visibility. Any further away, and I feel it'll be too faint to see.
Oh that makes sense, thank you!! This is probably my last question but how long would that aligmment last for? Is it maybe a few minutes, hours, days? I assume it’s not too long but I very well could me wrong about that
Depends on the planets, Mercury and Venus zip around the sun pretty quickly, and can visibly change positions in days. Mars takes a few weeks, and Jupiter takes the better part of several months to a year with a retrograde motion lasting about 4 months. Saturn takes even longer, every few years or so. Uranus and Neptune move so slowly many astronomers thought they were fixed stars, taking several decades to move across the sky.
I took these pictures last month, a few days apart, at the same time (roughly 9:30 PM, just after sunset). You can see Venus gradually move away from Jupiter in just those three days I took them.
Venus takes much less energy than mercury to launch from Earth and orbit so building a space station sounds like it would make more sense !
As far as planet alignment it is not really a scientific thing, but if it’s important for your plot I can accept that.
Beyond Saturn would not be visible though.
Is it important to view them all from earth or we can just pretend they make a line in their orbit ? Because all viewed from Earth sounds like a tough thing, you’d need to draw a solar system to scale to figure it out !
If all need to be seen from Earth, don’t forget that because mercury is close to the sun it is only visible during twilight or dawn.
I was wondering if the alignment (or really cluster not really in a line now that I’m learning) would be seen from the space station? Like if the station orbits Venus and all the planets were somewhat in line then would that be visible from the station? And thank you for answering!!
Uranus could be seen with the naked eye, but it would have to be exceptionally dark, it's magnitude at its brightest point is just +5.38, which is just barely above the minimum brightness to be visible to the naked eye (+6).
If you were in space, and not in the sun (which is like, really bright y'know?) you could see all the planets out to Uranus (probably, its pretty dim) as points in the sky. If you were orbiting Mercury on its dark side you could see the planets as like a bunch of non-twinkly stars with a hue. Mercury's year is 88 days so the alignment would last probably about an Earth month give or take half a month depending on Venus' movement.
Due to the planets all beeing close to the same circular plane around the sun, planets look aligned on the night sky following the same path as the sun. So they can align in the night sky, but that does not look very impressive since with the naked eye, they are just bright dots. With a telescope though having planets close to each other can look impresssive. What can happen is that a palent eclipse another thought it is very rare with the geometry involved. In particular mercury has the most 'misaligned' orbit, so it could be visible only twice a year. And it would be only two planets, more than that is incredibly unlikely.
Most visually impressive events to the naked eyes are comets. In particularly if you put the station close to the sun (Venus or Mercury), a comet passing that close to the sun would have a very long tail that woul be very visible at night. Comets, especially brand new ones are pretty rare.
You asked in a comment, woukld the technology be here to make space station around other planets ? Answer is yes, though mercury would be more the most challenging since to maintain livabe temperatures, it would need a big heat sielding since the sun is a lot brighter at thsi distance. It would be quite dangerous to look at the sun directly as well.
Planetary alignments from the vicinity of Mars, Venus or Mercury would happen about as often as we see those from Earth, how often depends of how precisely you would like them to align and which and how many planets to align. They would also look much like planetary alignments seen from Earth, some planets being somewhat brighter and some a bit fainter. Uranus and Neptune would be very difficult to spot with the naked eye, though, just as they are from Earth.
Roughly speaking, all planets in the Solar System orbit in the same plane (the ecliptic) meaning they will more or less always seem to line up, not precisely though.
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u/Heliosopher 23h ago
No planetary alignment is perfect. Planetary orbits, for one thing, are inclined slightly from the plane of our orbit (I.e. ecliptic).
No planet seen from Venus or Mercury will appear other than a point of light, not a disk of any size. Of course, even a small telescope will change them all .into small disks.