BANGALORE, INDIA, April 6, 2002: This month Venus, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and Mercury will be clearly visible between April 15 and 30, with Mercury joining in to shine in the night sky in the month-end. The best time to see these planets is around seven in the evening, just after sunset in the Western sky. “It will be a rare opportunity for all people to identify planets,” says Dr B. S. Shylaja, Educator of the Bangalore Association for Science Education, Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium. “It is being dubbed as a rare alignment, but the planets will not be in alignment (in one straight line),” says Dr Shylaja. But they will all be visible in a cluster, making them easy to spot. One easy way to identify the planets will be to keep the Moon as your mark. On April 14, the planet that appears closest to the Moon will be Venus, on 15 – Mars, on 16 – Saturn, on 17 – Jupiter. Venus will be the brightest of them all and Mars the dullest. In 1997 this phenomenon occurred in November and was a wash-out because of clouds.
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