Five brightest planets visible from Earth line up for 'planetary parade'; See pics

In a rare sight of five planets lining up one after another, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn, as seen from Earth, lined up in a planetary parade for the entire month of June as they moved in their own independent orbits around the sun. The planets when seen in the night sky from several parts of Earth appeared to form a straight line. 

The instance which happens once in several decades became more special after a crescent moon joined the parade of planets making it a spectacular watch for stargazers. 

While American space agency NASA called it a 'parade of planets', the American Astronomical Society, in a statement, revealed that such sighting is very rare and the last time such a planet formation took place was in December 2004. Check the NASA picture of the planet alignment from June 23:

Five brightest planets visible from Earth line up for night sky spectacle

The five planets that appeared to be part of a parade in the night sky, as NASA described it, include Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturday - the brightest planets in the solar system that are visible from Earth. As witnessed from the latest pictures, while Mercury lies at the lowest point on the horizon, it is followed by Venus, Mars Jupiter, and finally Saturn at the top of the alignment.

In addition to that, a few other planets including Uranus and Neptune are also in the alignment but are not visible to naked eyes. Earlier on June 19, NASA took to Twitter stating about the beginning of the 'unusual' planet lineup. Photographers from various places have also managed to catch a glimpse of the rare sighting. One of them was astrophotographer Wright Dobbs, a meteorologist for the U.S. National Weather Service. 

Sharing a picture of the sighting that he clicked, he clearly marked all the five planets in a sequential manner. Check his post below: 

Apart from that, many others also took to their social media handles and shared their own version of the view. 

Notably, while the planets remained in the sky for the entire June month, it was on June 24 when all the planets were clearly visible in the sky.

(Image: Shutterstock)