An unusual and beautiful arrangement of planets will be visible without a telescope through today, Phil Appleton, associate professor of physics and astronomy, said.

Usually, only one or two planets are visible at a time. Until today, however, all of the planets will be aligned in one part of the sky “like pearls on a string” Appleton said.

The arrangement allows everyone, even without a telescope, to see the five ‘naked eye’ planets at once.

“That’s the beauty of it,” he said.

The five planets that are visible without a microscope are, in order from the sun, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn.

Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, will only be visible for about half an hour after sunset each night, Appleton said, and it will disappear from sight altogether after today or tomorrow.

“It will be hanging above the horizon,” Appleton said for those who wish to find it. “It’s just a tiny dot.”

To enhance the beauty of the spectacular arrangement of planets is the earth’s own crescent moon. Each night it will appear close to a different planet; on Monday night it will be very close to Saturn, Appleton said.

A microscope is needed in order to see Neptune and Uranus, and to see Pluto, time-release photography is needed, according to a press release.

The alignment of the planets may be a normal, if fairly unusual, event for the solar system, but Appleton said he still finds it “awe inspiring.”

The planets appear in this arrangement because, while each has its own orbit around the sun, they all lie in the same ecliptic plane, Appleton said. The moon, though its orbit is around the Earth rather than the sun, lies in that same plane.

Appleton said this is due to how our solar system formed, and scientists are observing the same thing in other developing star systems with the Hubble Telescope.

The swirling dust in a nebular forms a very thin disc, which is very dramatic to observe, he said.

When the matter eventually turns into a planet, it continues orbiting on its path within the “disc”.

The narrowness of the “disc” is what keeps all of the planets in roughly the same place, as well as the Earth’s moon, even though it was captured by the Earth rather than the sun, Appleton said.

In May 2000, the planets will be in a similar alignment, according to the press release. Appleton said that it will be far more difficult to view then, however, because they will be much closer to the sun.

It will be another 100 years before people will be able to see all of the planets in one part of the sky again, according to the press release.