Today’s planetary alignment of Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Venus and Saturn is a common, yet not-to-be-missed astronomical event.
According to specialised sites, the brightest planets, such as Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn, will be visible to the naked eye, while Uranus and Neptune will require telescopes due to their dim luminosity.
The phenomenon can be seen from all parts of the world and will last for several days after this date.
The planetary «alignment» is actually a perspective effect and does not mean that the planets are perfectly aligned in space, but rather that the sky shows a visible arrangement of bright planets in the night sky.
According to astronomers, it is a constant event, as all the planets in the solar system orbit around the Sun in paths called orbits, which have small inclinations, but not so small that they move too far away from a single line in the sky.
The imaginary line in the sky is called the ecliptic and arises because the Earth also orbits the Sun in a plane, and we project that plane into the sky as a reference.
Based on that statement, from our position on Earth, it appears that the planets are placed in a row or close to the ecliptic, although in reality each is in its own orbit and at different distances from the Sun.
In other words, they are not really aligned, but the position from Earth creates this illusion of order, because in reality, the planets always follow close paths of the ecliptic, so technically there is nothing unusual about their apparent position.