'Planet parade' photo captures 7 planets in a line over Earth — possibly for the 1st time ever
A stunning photo of a "parade of planets", shows Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn, Venus, Neptune, and Mercury in alignment from Earth. The image could be the first of its kind.
The composite image shows seven of the solar system's planets from Earth, after sundown on Feb. 22. (Image credit: Josh Dury)
A stunning photo has captured all seven of our neighboring planets in Earth's sky at the same time, possibly for the first time ever.
The composite image, captured by astrophotographer Josh Dury, shows Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn, Venus, Neptune and Mercury in alignment thanks to a rare "planetary parade" taking place this weekend for the first time since 1982. (Here's how you can see it for yourself tonight).
While spacecraft, such as NASA's Voyager 1, have snapped all the planets in the sky from space, terrestrial cameras have only recently become advanced enough to capture them from the ground — meaning Dury's photo is likely the very first of its kind.
"Seven (arguably, 8) is a feat that to my prior knowledge has not been achieved before," Dury told Live Science in an email — suggesting that if we include Earth itself, visible in the foreground, the image's planet total comes to eight. "This image could hold a record for being the first of its kind to photograph all the planets of the solar system, blended into a stitched panoramic image."
Dury captured the image just after sundown on Feb. 22 from The Mendip Hills — a range of limestone hills in Somerset in the U.K.
Related: Have all 8 planets ever aligned?
To achieve this photographic feat, Dury created a composite shot made up of several panes, with each pane captured in multiple exposures.
https://www.livescience.com/space/a...ine-over-earth-possibly-for-the-1st-time-ever
