You Should Easily Be Able to Spot Uranus in the Night Sky This Week

If you’re looking for something unusual to do this week, we suggest taking the family out to the backyard and looking up at the night sky after dark. At first, that might not sound like a very unusual activity. Stargazing isn’t anything new, and most of us have probably looked up at the sky and pointed out the constellations at some point.

What makes stargazing this week especially unusual is that you will most likely be able to spot not one but 2 planets in our solar system – Mars and Uranus. This planetary duo will be lined up so that if you find Mars (which will be the easiest plant to find), finding Uranus will be fairly easy too.

Mars and Uranus will be lined up for a couple weeks, but from January 19th-21st is the ideal time to look at the sky since the moon will help you find them on these particular days.

If you have perfect vision and live somewhere that gets really dark at night (no streetlights or houselights), you might be able to see Uranus just by looking at the sky, but if you have access to a small telescope or binoculars, that will pretty much guarantee that you will be able to see Uranus, even if there are a few lights where you live.

Here’s how you can find the 2 planets this week. After dark, look up at the sky and find the moon. It will be a quarter moon, so it will be bright and easy to find, but it won’t be so bright that it outshines Mars.

If you look right above the moon, you should see something bright red in the sky. That’s Mars. Now, get out the telescope or binoculars if you have them, and find Mars again. Look right below Mars and a little bit to the left. That’s Uranus.

If you enjoy looking at the planets in the sky, now might be a good time to invest in a pair of binoculars or a telescope because this is just one of many fun astronomical events happening in 2021. On February 11th, you should be able to see Venus and Jupiter. On March 5th, if you get up early in the morning, you should be able to see Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn. On July 12th, Venus and Mars will be visible, and Mars and Mercury will be visible on August 18th.

Are you going to look up at the sky and try to find Mars and Uranus this week?