North Texans are in for a celestial treat: this month and until late February, six planets in our solar system will be in alignment in the night sky.
A planetary alignment, or as it’s known colloquially, a planet parade, is when the planets appear to be arranged in a line, though not a perfect one.
Planetary alignments are relatively common. They happen when the paths of three or more of our neighboring planets, which are traveling at different speeds and distances as they orbit the Sun, seem to cross from our perspective on Earth. The last planetary alignment with six planets occurred last June.
During this astronomical phenomenon, four planets will be visible to the naked eye in the first couple of hours after dark, according to NASA: Venus and Saturn in the southwest edge of the sky, reddish Mars in the east and Jupiter shiny bright high overhead.
The ice giants of the solar system, Neptune and Uranus, will also be present but not visible unless seen with a telescope, the space agency added.
On Monday, Mars disappeared behind the moon in what’s called a lunar occultation (and what happened to be the first full moon of 2025). For the rest of January, Mars will be the sole planet in the sky in the morning. It’ll be visible in the west in the twilight.
Going into late February, Saturn will be lost to view as it dips below the horizon. Neptune, Venus, Uranus, Jupiter and Mars will remain visible in the night sky.
The last planetary alignment involving all planets in the solar system, including Mercury, the smallest and nearest to the Sun, was in 2022. Full planetary alignments don’t happen often; the next one is not expected until 2040.
Assuming clear skies, the best time to see the planetary alignment in the Dallas-Fort Worth area is between 7 and 9 p.m., said Marc Hairston, a research scientist at William B. Hanson Center for Space Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas, in an email.
“Depending on trees and what’s obstructing your local horizon and exactly what time you get out, you may have difficulty seeing both Venus (setting in the west) and Mars (rising in the east) at the same time,” Hairston said.
Hairston added that Venus and Saturn will appear close together this weekend in what astronomers call a planetary conjunction. The two planets will be about two or three fingertip widths apart in the sky, he said. In reality, Venus, the second planet from the Sun, and Saturn, the sixth, will be nearly a billion miles apart.
Miriam Fauzia is a science reporting fellow at The Dallas Morning News. Her fellowship is supported by the University of Texas at Dallas. The News makes all editorial decisions.