Planets align but clouds may have obstructed the view
If you had your eyes to the sky Tuesday evening you may have noticed a special alignment.
Just after sunset, Jupiter and Mercury were close to the horizon, just above that was the brightest planet Venus, a dim, greenish looking star was Uranus and a reddish/orange looking star was Mars.
This information is according to Jan Cami, a Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Western University, and the Director of the Hume Cronyn Memorial Observatory.
There were some clouds on the western horizon so the planets may have been difficult to see from this region.
According to Cami, the alignment was visible because of the layout of our solar system.
"All planets orbit the Sun in approximately the same plane, so you could think of the solar system as a pancake with an egg yolk at the centre that represents the Sun perhaps. The Earth of course is in that pancake, so if we look at other planets, we are always looking in that plane of the pancake, which to us looks like a line in the sky," she told CTV News.
While it would have been interesting to see, Cami said to see the five planets fairly close to each other in the sky, is actually not super rare.
"They happen every couple of years. In fact, last June there was an alignment where the planets were visible early in the morning, in order of increasing distance from the Sun. What changes is the position of the planets. Having all eight planets of the solar system align like this is much rarer."
If you happened to catch the alignment on camera, send us your photos and videos to weathersnapshot@ctv.ca
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
BREAKING Honda to get up to $5B in govt help for EV battery, assembly plants
Honda is set to build an electric vehicle battery plant next to its Alliston, Ont., assembly plant, which it is retooling to produce fully electric vehicles, all part of a $15-billion project that is expected to include up to $5 billion in public money.
BREAKING New York appeals court overturns Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction from landmark #MeToo trial
New York’s highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction, finding the judge at the landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced the ex-movie mogul with improper rulings, including a decision to let women testify about allegations that weren’t part of the case.
Residents of northern Alberta First Nation told to shelter in place
Residents of John D'Or Prairie, a community on the Little Red River Cree Nation in northern Alberta, were told to take shelter Thursday morning during a police operation.
Secret $70M Lotto Max winners break their silence
During a special winner celebration near their hometown, Doug and Enid shared the story of how they discovered they were holding a Lotto Max ticket worth $70 million and how they kept this huge secret for so long.
Remains from a mother-daughter cold case were found nearly 24 years later, after a deathbed confession from the suspect
A West Virginia father is getting some sense of closure after authorities found the remains of his young daughter and her mother following a deathbed confession from the man believed to have fatally shot them nearly two decades ago.
Monthly earnings rise, payroll employment falls: jobs report
The number of vacant jobs in Canada increased in February, while monthly payroll employment decreased in food services, manufacturing, and retail trade, among other sectors.
First in Canada procedure performed at London, Ont. hospital
A London man has become the first person in Canada to receive a robotic assisted surgery on his spine. Dave Myeh suffered from debilitating, chronic back pain that led to sciatica in his right now and extreme pain in his lower back.
Doctors say capital gains tax changes will jeopardize their retirement. Is that true?
The Canadian Medical Association asserts the Liberals' proposed changes to capital gains taxation will put doctors' retirement savings in jeopardy, but some financial experts insist incorporated professionals are not as doomed as they say they are.
Something in the water? Canadian family latest to spot elusive 'Loch Ness Monster'
For centuries, people have wondered what, if anything, might be lurking beneath the surface of Loch Ness in Scotland. When Canadian couple Parry Malm and Shannon Wiseman visited the Scottish highlands earlier this month with their two children, they didn’t expect to become part of the mystery.