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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
Antony Thrower

All planets in our solar system can be seen with naked eye in the sky tonight

Stargazers will want to dig out their telescopes this evening as all the planets in our solar system will be visible in tonight’s sky.

Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will be able to be viewed with the naked eye in a rare astronomical event for those in the northern hemisphere.

The two outermost planets, Uranus and Neptune, will also be visible - but only to those armed with binoculars and telescopes.

Gianluca Masi, an astronomer with the Virtual Telescope Project said: “These nights, we can see all the planets of our solar system at a glance, soon after sunset.

“It happens from time to time, but it is always a spectacular sight."

The planets were last see together in June (Encyclopaedia Britannica/Uig/REX/Shutterstock)

The planets were last seen together in the night’s sky in June this year.

The last time Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were seen in sequential order was in 2005.

The celestial showpiece will remain visible until the end of the year, when Mercury will fade away.

Some planets will be easier to spot than others, such as Mars with its reddish hue and Saturn which will appear golden.

The amazing sight will be seen by those in the northern hemisphere (Getty Images)

Jupiter will appear to be the brightest in the night’s sky.

Unlike stars they do not twinkle, making spotting them easier.

A number of skyscanning apps are available to assist people in spotting the orbs in the sky.

For those interested in galaxies outside our own, space scientists released an image after capturing a glimpse into never-before-seen worlds 280 million lightyears away.

The stunning shot is one of the first released since one of Earth's most powerful telescopes was upgraded last year.

Some planets will be visible with the naked eye (Getty Images)

The William Herschel Telescope, currently based in the Canary Islands, has been supercharged so it can reveal how galaxies came into formation.

A super-fast mapping device means the telescope can survey up to 1,000 stars per hour, tracking the speed at which they're travelling.

The technology, dubbed 'WHT Enhanced Area Velocity Explorer' (WEAVE), is even able to collect data on the atoms the stars are built of, and has been likened to peering into the universe with '3D glasses'.

Astrophysicists at the University of Cambridge revealed one of the first images captured on the upgraded technology on Tuesday, showing an "unprecedented glimpse" into a cluster of five galaxies named 'Stephan's Quintet' in the Pegasus constellation.

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