A January Sky Like No Other: Iowa’s Planetary Extravaganza

According to NASA, in the skies above Iowa this month, you'll enjoy a celestial display of planets.  They'll display themselves as if in a planetary line dance, with several sliding super close to each other as the month goes on.  The cool thing is, this should be available for you to see with the naked eye for most of the month.

On January 21, 2025, several planets will align, but you might not be able to see them all with the naked eye.  In the evening, just after sunset, six planets — Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Venus, and Saturn — will align in the sky.

I like to let you know about things you can just look up in the sky and see.  I've owned several telescopes and they're not all the same.  They're sometimes tricky to operate and they can be an expense that is not always in the budget.

Four-Planet Conjunction 

I love the word conjunction.  Do you remember School House Rock's Conjuntion Junction? What fun that was.

Back to the skies over Iowa.  This January, there's a cool celestial event happening that you'll want to check out—four bright planets, Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, will be visible in a line across the sky.

This alignment is called a "conjunction," where the planets all line up along the ecliptic, which is basically the plane where all the planets orbit the sun.  To me, ecliptic sounds like a movie plot about exercising in space that goes very, very badly.  Exercise, oooh, very scary. 

Visibility 

Every night this month, you’ll be able to spot Venus and Saturn in the southwest, with Jupiter hanging above them, and Mars to the east. These planets are easy to see with the naked eye. If you happen to have a telescope, you could also catch a glimpse of Uranus and Neptune, though you won’t be able to see them without one. 

Ecliptic 

The reason these planets are lined up the way they are is because they’re all aligned along the ecliptic. This is just the name for the imaginary line that shows the plane in which all the planets orbit around the sun. That’s why, when the planets align, they seem to move closer together in the sky.

Close Approaches 

As the month goes on, Venus and Saturn will get closer and closer to each other, especially around mid-January. They'll have a super close approach, meaning they’ll look like they’re right next to each other in the sky. 

Mars Opposition VS Spanish Inquisition

The Spanish hadch "opposition" this month, which means it will be on the opposite side of Earth from the "inquisition," and Mars will also rea the Sun.

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When this happens, Mars is at its closest point to Earth, so it’ll look bigger and brighter. This only happens once every two years, so it's a pretty special sight.  No word on what the Spanish have to say about it.  

https://assets.science.nasa.gov/content/dam/science/psd/mars/downloadable_items/3/1/31304_ScienceCast_TheOppositionofMars-1280.mp4

Why is This a Special Event?

While planetary alignments aren’t super rare, it’s not every day you get to see four bright planets in the sky at once. This is a pretty special event, and it doesn’t happen every year, so it’s definitely worth taking a look!