Image Credit & Copyright: Mihail Minkov
Explanation: It is not a coincidence
that planets line up. That's because all of the planets orbit the Sun in
(nearly) a single sheet called the plane of the ecliptic.
When viewed from inside that plane -- as Earth dwellers are
likely to do -- the planets all appear confined to a single band.
It is a coincidence, though, when three of the brightest planets all
appear in nearly the same direction. Such a coincidence was captured about a
month ago. Featured above, Earth's
Moon, Mars, Saturn,
and Jupiter were
all imaged together, just
before sunrise, from the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria.
A second band is visible diagonally
across this image -- the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy. If you
wake up early, you will find that these same planets remain visible in the
morning sky this month, too.
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