UK stargazers will be in store for a fantastic display tonight as six planets line up in a 'planetary parade'.
Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune will all be visible in a rare event known as a planetary alignment.
And if the weather isn't in your favour there's no need to worry as this dazzling lineup will be sticking around for weeks.
However, although Mars and Saturn will be visible with the naked eye, you may need a pair of binoculars to see all six.
Professor Danny Steeghs, of the University of Warwick, says: 'Seeing the alignment will indeed be challenging as it happens around sunrise and it’s all rather low in the east as well.'
Jupiter will be lowest and furthest to the east, appearing just above the horizon and closely followed by Mercury and Uranus. Following the line upwards and to the south, viewers will see the moon followed by Mars, Neptune, and finally Saturn
How to spot the planets
The planets will look like bright stars, except they don’t 'twinkle'.Stars twinkle, while planets usually shine steadily.
The planets are also different colours - Mercury is white-ish while Uranus is a faint greenish-blue.
Mars can be recognised by its distinctive rusty red colour.
Jupiter is a light tan colour and Saturn is a yellow-ish tan colour.
Source:Adler Planetarium
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Planetary alignments occur when several planets all appear on the same side of the sun.
From Earth, this makes it appear that all the planets are arranged in a long diagonal line stretching from East to South across the night sky.
Jupiter will be lowest and furthest to the east, appearing just above the horizon and closely followed by Mercury and Uranus.
Following the line upwards and to the south, viewers will see the moon followed by Mars, Neptune, and finally Saturn.
To get the best chance of seeing this alignment look to the East just before dawn, which should be at around 4:00 am Tuesday in the UK.
However, not all the planets will be visible to the naked eye and it might be quite difficult to actually see all the planets at once.
Professor Steeghs says: 'Uranus and Neptune will be faint, so viewers will require good binoculars to see them.
'Jupiter and even Mercury are very close to the sun, restricting their view.'
The easiest planets to see will be Mars and Saturn which should be visible to the naked eye.
A planetary alignment occurs when planets all orbit meet on the same side of the sun which makes them appear aligned from Earth
Mars is recognisable due to its orange glow, while Saturn should have a yellowish-tan colour.
You should be able to spot these two rising ahead of the other planets and higher in the sky.
For the best view, try to find somewhere away from sources of light pollution such as street lights and give your eyes plenty of time to adjust to the darkness.
Professor Steeghs also recommends using mobile apps as a guide on where and when to look in the sky.
He adds: 'Viewers could set themselves a challenge to try and see as many of them as they can, but this will need a clear, uninterrupted view of the east.'
Unfortunately for many eager stargazers in the UK, tonight's weather may block views in certain locations.
From 3:00 am tomorrow morning, there will be cloud cover over large parts of the UK with a few breaks over Wales and the Midlands.
The weather for this week is not very good for stargazing but the Met Office predicts that there will be a few breaks overnight
Saturn (pictured) will be one of the easier-to-see planets during this alignment and will appear higher up in the sky than the other planets
The Met Office also forecasts rain over Northern Ireland extending into the north of England, so be sure to check your local forecast before heading out.
Grahame Madge, a Met Office spokesman, says: 'Compared with the weekend there is more cloud across parts of the UK, so this will affect some people’s views.
'There will be some breaks overnight allowing some glimpses of the night sky.'
However, the alignment will stick around for a little while longer so there may be better chances to come later in the week.
Because the outer planets move slowly relative to Earth, there will be a few more planetary alignments featuring the same set of planets in different orders.
Not all of the planets will be visible to the naked eye. Uranus (depicted here in artist's impression) will be particularly faint and will require binoculars to see
This same group of planets will line up again in a different order during August this year and again in January 2025.
And in February next year, there will be an even more spectacular alignment of seven planets.
However, once this specific configuration has passed by it may take hundreds of years to come about again.
DOES PLANETARY ALIGNMENT HAVE AN EFFECT ON EARTH?
The planets in our solar system never line up in one perfectly straight line like they show in the movies.
If you look at a two-dimensional plot of the planets and their orbits on a piece of paper you may be lead to believe that all the planets will circle around to the same line eventually.
In reality, the planets do not all orbit perfectly in the same plane. Instead, they swing about on different orbits in three dimensional space. For this reason, they will never be perfectly aligned.
Planetary alignment depends on your viewpoint. If three planets are in the same region of sky from Earth's point of view, they are not necessarily in the same region of sky form the sun's point of view.
Alignment is therefore an artifact of a viewpoint and not something fundamental about the planets themselves.
Even if the planets did all align in a perfectly straight line, it would have negligible effects on Earth.
Fictional and pseudo-science authors like to claim that a planetary alignment would mean that all of the gravitational fields of the planets add together to make something massive that interferes with life on Earth.
In truth, the gravitational pulls of the planets on the Earthare so weak that they have no significant effect on Earth life.
There are only two solar system objects with enough gravity to significantly affect Earth: the moon and the sun.
The sun's gravity is strong because the sun is so massive. The moon's gravitational effect on the Earth is strong because the moon is so close.
The sun's gravity causes Earth's yearly orbit and therefore, combined with earth's tilt, it causes the seasons.
The moon's gravity is primarily responsible for the daily ocean tides. The near alignment of the sun and the moon does have an effect on the Earth, because their gravitational fields are so strong.
This partial alignment occurs every full moon and new moon, and it leads to extra strong tides called 'spring tides'.
The word 'spring' here refers to the fact that the water seems to leap up the shore with the extra strong tides every two weeks - not that they occur only in the spring season.
Source: Dr Christopher S. Baird/West Texas A&M University
