Iowans who bundle up to brave the evening chill will be able to see a relatively rare event in the January night sky, what some are calling the Parade of Planets. Allison Jaynes, a physics and astronomy professor at the University of Iowa, says Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are all shifting into near-alignment, and two more planets — Uranus and Neptune — will join the celestial conga line later this month.
While you can’t believe everything you read on the internet, Jaynes says it’s true the six planets will be appearing in the same region of the sky, but they will not be in a tight, straight line.
Budding backyard astronomers can quickly orient themselves among the stars above with the help of a few key websites or free applications for their smartphones.
From solar and lunar eclipses to the Star of Bethlehem, rare celestial events over the centuries have been interpreted various ways, both as signs of good fortune or impending peril.
