In the News: Kevin Williams Offers Tips on How to View This Month's ‘Planetary Parade’

Kevin Williams, associate professor of geosciences and director of Buffalo State's Whitworth Ferguson Planetarium, recently spoke with the Associated Press Health and Science Department for its January 17 article on how to view planets this month.

The article, "How To Glimpse a Parade of Planets in the January Night Sky" by Adithi Ramakrishnan, offered input from experts on how to view a "planetary parade," an astronomical occurrence when several planets align on one side of the sun to be visible across a narrow band of the earth's sky.

Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are visible to the naked eye this month and for part of February; Uranus and Neptune can be spotted with binoculars and telescopes. Mercury is set to join the parade as a bonus seventh planet at the end of February before the planets make their exit through the spring.

To see the planets, Williams recommended going outside on a clear night a few hours after sunset and facing south. "It gives us a little bit better sense of our place in the solar system and the universe," he said.

Photo by Buffalo State Marketing & Communications.