In early January 2026, there will be a very interesting alignment in our skies, although it will not be visible to us. Nonetheless, I feel may have a powerful effect.
Pop culture or “Facebook” astronomy has flooded the internet with disinformation and I find that rather sad. It creates an unrealistic expectation, and misunderstandings. “Once in a lifetime” “alignments” are popularised encouraging people to go out and look at the skies, which is a great thing; I feel we should all spend more time watching the wonders of our night sky. However, often they return disappointed.
Headlines like “7 planets visible in the sky” really require some caveats. For a start, even I, as an amateur astronomer with a telescope, have never seen Uranus or Neptune. Maybe I haven’t tried hard enough, but they are exceptionally difficult to spot, especially with the naked eye. If you are in an area with very dark skies, something which is becoming rarer by the day, you might have a chance. However, in general, you will see Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. If you are lucky, and particularly if you are at lower latitudes like Guatemala, you will see Mercury too. The inclination of the ecliptic at 15 degrees North means that there is a greater separation between the planet and the horizon. The rather flat inclination of the ecliptic in higher latitudes makes Mercury difficult to spot.
“The planets will be in a line in the sky” they said.
A misconception was made early in 2025 regarding an event. It was widely published as being an alignment, before being reworded as a “planetary parade”. Unfortunately, sensationalist internet sites had propagated the misinformation so that many people believed it was an alignment of some kind. The planets do form (or follow) a line in the sky, but it’s not actually rare. The planets roughly follow the line of the ecliptic, the path of the Sun through the sky. It is the plane of the solar system. To simplify the understanding of this we could think of balls on a plate. From our viewpoint on Earth they might appear to be in a line in the sky, but the reality of their positions within the solar system was a bit more like the diagram below.
It becomes very apparent that this probably is not much of an alignment! Looking up from East to West it was certainly possible to see Mars, then Jupiter (almost overhead), then Venus with Saturn and Mercury close to the horizon at sunset. It was great to see so many planets visible but not really what I would call an alignment. You had to really look from one side of the sky to the other to see it.
Why mention it now?
On January 6th 2026 Venus will be at superior conjunction. Venus and Mercury orbit the Sun within the orbit of the Earth. This means that they can pass between the Earth and the Sun (inferior conjunction) and behind the Sun from the point of view from Earth (superior conjunction).
Mars can pass behind the Sun (conjunction) or put the Earth directly between it and the Sun (opposition, sort of like a full moon).
Approximately every 584 days, Venus will be at superior conjunction. Mars will be at (superior) conjunction every 789 days. In January 2026 these will happen at nearly the same moment. Both Venus and Mars will be “behind” the Sun from our point of view here on Earth. This could be seen very much as an alignment, with the planets coming very close to an exact line extending from the Earth through the Sun.
Interestingly, Jupiter will be at opposition on January 10th 2026, extending that alignment. It is not exact, but it is very close to being a true alignment, with Earth being the filling of the sandwich.
I don’t have an answer for what it all means, but I would suggest this alignment would have a greater effect than the planetary parade of 2025.
