The next several weeks will give skywatchers a chance to see many planets at once. Shimpei Yamashita via Getty ImagesThe night sky will offer stargazers a special sight for the next several weeks: Right now, all planets except Mercury can be seen after sundownthen, in late February, the missing planet will join the line-up.While the planets technically always appear along the same rough line in our sky, the fact that so many can be seen at once is noteworthy, according to NASA. Six planets are currently located above the horizon after darkVenus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are all visible to the naked eye, but youll need a telescope or binoculars to see Uranus and Neptune, the most distant planets. Then, with the addition of Mercury around February 28, all seven other planets will be together in the night sky.However, the planets wont actually form a perfect line. You can draw a line thats an arc, but its not an alignment like what you would have in your mind, explains Parshati Patel, an astrophysicist and science communicator with Stellar Dreams, to CBC News.In reality, the event is more about our perspective than the planets literal placementif the planets actually aligned with each other in space, that would be called a syzygy and thats a much, much rarer event, Kate Pattle, an astronomer at University College London, said to CNNs Jacopo Prisco during a similar alignment last year. The planetary lineup this month will feature four planets visible to the naked eye. Mercury will join them in late February. NASA / JPL-CaltechThe eight planets in our solar system all orbit the sun in roughly the same flat plane, known as the eclipticbut they move at different speeds. Earth, for instace, takes about 365 days to complete one orbit; Mercury takes roughly 88 days, while Neptune takes nearly 165 years. That plane of planetary motion forms a line across our sky, and the planets always appear to travel acrossit.Right now, they happen to all be in their orbits on the same side of our sun, within the same degrees in our sky, so that we can see them, says Rebecca Allen, an astrophysicist at Swinburne University in Australia, to the Guardians Petra Stock. That is special.Even if the planetary alignment is more of a planetary coincidence, itll still be worth spending a few minutes looking up to the sky after sunset. Allen recommends using a basic sky map, available on many phone apps. Saturn and Venus will appear in the west, while Mars will lie in the east and Jupiter will shine overhead. Uranus and Neptune, though not naked-eye visible, will be between Jupiter and the western planets.Yes, you can go on Google and get a more spectacular view of all these planets, says Jenifer Millard, a science communicator and astronomer at Fifth Star Labs, to Jonathan OCallaghan of the BBC. But when youre looking at these objects, these are photons that have traveled millions or billions of miles through space to hit your retinas.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Astronomy, NASA, Outer Space, Planets, Sky Watching Guide, Solar System