Where are the planets right now?

The planets all travel close to one flat plane, the one Earth's orbit makes. They formed from the flat, spinning disc round the young Sun, and they still move in nearly the same plane. So from here they follow nearly the same path across the sky as the Sun and the Moon. Astronomers call that path the ecliptic.

A planet east of the Sun in our sky sets after it, so it shines in the evening. A planet west of the Sun rises before it, in the morning sky. An outer planet opposite the Sun rises as the Sun sets and is up all night. And a planet close to the Sun in the sky is lost in its glare. Mercury and Venus never stray far from the Sun, so we only see them in twilight, after sunset or before sunrise.

Five planets can be seen without a telescope: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Uranus is only just visible to sharp eyes under a dark sky, and only if you know exactly where to look. Neptune always needs a telescope. Each planet's page here says where it is in the sky right now.

In a way, they always do. Because they share one flat plane, the planets always appear along a line or a gentle arc across our sky. We look at that plane from inside it, edge-on, like one runner watching the others on a racetrack.

Every few years, four or five of the bright planets are up at the same time, strung along that path. People call this a planet parade, but it is not a term astronomers use. It isn't a single night either: the planets move slowly, so a parade lasts days or weeks, sometimes more. NASA lists one for late October 2028, with five planets before sunrise.

In space, the planets are not in a straight line during a parade. They are scattered round the Sun, at very different distances, in different directions. Only from where we stand do they seem to line up.

And a line-up does nothing to Earth. The planets are too far away for their pull to matter here. All of them together raise far smaller tides on Earth than the Moon or the Sun, wherever they are.