{"id":4197,"date":"2016-01-21T17:34:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T16:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/planet-alignment-a-spectacle-at-dawn-until-february\/"},"modified":"2016-01-21T17:34:00","modified_gmt":"2016-01-21T16:34:00","slug":"planet-alignment-a-spectacle-at-dawn-until-february","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/planet-alignment-a-spectacle-at-dawn-until-february\/","title":{"rendered":"Planet Alignment: a Spectacle at Dawn until February"},"content":{"rendered":"

An excellent astronomical configuration is occurring these days and will last until mid-February 2016. It involves an alignment of planets in the Solar System, as there are many throughout the year, but this time the number is particularly high: as many as five planets will line up, forming a more or less straight line from southeast to west. <\/p>\n

To the “usual” Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, Mercury will also be added this time, becoming visible last, very close to the horizon in the southeast direction, right at sunrise. This hasn’t happened since 2005. <\/p>\n

Even the moon will play a part, accompanying, panerai replica watches<\/a> on different days, the various planets, making them much easier to identify and, not least, frame for “group” photos with our Satellite.<\/p>\n

In Cagliari, the weather, at least for these first few days, seems to be turning nice, so the alignment should be quite easily visible starting from 6:30 AM in the direction of dawn.<\/p>\n

Curiously, even Pluto – the former ninth planet downgraded in 2006 to a “dwarf planet” – will be part of the planet alignment, very close to Mercury and completely invisible.<\/p>\n

For those who aren’t early risers and don’t have the chance or desire to enjoy this astronomical spectacle, all is not lost: the phenomenon will reoccur in August of next year but with completely different characteristics. It will be visible at sunset, with the planets in a different, less close order, with some visibility issues for Venus and Mercury, and with Mars almost perfectly aligned between Earth and the Sun, thus invisible. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the second half of January to the first half of February 2016, a particularly regular and fascinating planetary alignment will be visible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}