Sky-gazers line up at the beach to catch a glimpse of planets

Sky-gazers line up at the beach to catch a glimpse of planets

Sky-gazers lined up in the wee hours of Sunday at the Promenade Beach to catch a glimpse of a rare planetary alignment.

The viewing of the axis of six planets--- Saturn, Neptune, Mars, Uranus, Mercury and Jupiter---observable since June 3 and through this week, was hosted by the Pondicherry Science Forum.

Children and adults took turns catching the rare sight through a telescope mounted at the Gandhi Thidal on the beach. The session was held from 4 a.m. to 6 am.

A gathering of more than 300, including children, queued up well before 4 a.m. to witness the planets through the telescope. Till about 5:45 a.m., the participants could witness Saturn and Jupiter and the Galilean moons.

According to PSF coordinators, when viewed from the Earth, these planets will appear to be in a straight line, even though they are actually not. This is because each planet orbits at a different distance and at a different angle of inclination in our solar orbit, it is unlikely that they line up in a straight line.

Children were told how each planet in the solar system takes different days/years to go around the sun once. So there are occasional occurrences of planets appearing side by side in the sky at the same time. Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune can be seen simultaneously in the early morning ., if viewed from a place free of air and light pollution and not obscured by the horizon.

Saturn (from 2 am) and Mars (from 3 am) are clearly visible to the naked eye. The planets Jupiter and Mercury can be seen just before sunrise with the naked eye, according to the PSF.