The brightest planets in January's night sky: How to see them (and when)

Four bright planets are conveniently placed for viewing in January's evening sky. By far, the most brilliant is Venus, which dominates the southwest sky for several hours after sundown. Saturn, always a favorite for viewers with telescopes because of its famous ring system, is not far from Venus, though appearing only a fraction as bright.

These two planets will appear closest together — separated by only a couple of degrees — on Jan. 18. Brilliant Jupiter is in our sky for practically the entire night, adding to the luster of the brilliant winter stars and positioned within the zodiacal constellation of Taurus the Bull.

But January belongs to fiery hued Mars, making its closest approach to the Earth for the next six years. Shining just a trifle less than Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, Mars comes to opposition on Jan. 16 and a few days prior to that, on Jan. 13, will be briefly hidden by the full moon across the contiguous United States and southern Canada.

Related: Night sky, January 2025: What you can see tonight [maps]

Read more: Best telescopes for seeing planets in 2025

The only bright planet that is out of the evening sky loop is Mercury. It starts 2025 rising about 90 minutes before sunrise in the east-southeast sky, but quickly drops into the bright morning twilight and disappears from view before the end of the second week of January.

In our schedule, remember that when measuring the angular separation between two celestial objects, your clenched fist held at arm's length measures roughly 10-degrees. Here, we present a schedule below which provides some of the best planet viewing times as well directing you as to where to look to see them.

Be sure to check out our best telescopes for viewing planets guide and our more general guides for the best binoculars and the best telescopes. If you're interested in taking your own impressive skywatching images, we have recommendations for the best cameras for astrophotography and the best lenses for astrophotography.

Mercury

As January opens, Mercury is a -0.2-magnitude "morning star" rising 1.5 hours before the sun. In mid-twilight on the 1st, look 12 degrees to the lower left of Antares. Moving rapidly eastward, Mercury will gain on the sun and disappear before midmonth.

Venus

The blazing "evening star" Venus is stunning throughout January as it brightens from magnitude -4.4 to -4.7, remaining up for almost 4 hours after sunset (for observers at mid-northern latitudes). Seen from latitude 40 degrees north. Venus's altitude a half-hour after sunset increases from 29 degrees to 35 degrees between New Year's Day and month's end. Venus attains its greatest elongation, 47 degrees east of the sun, on Jan. 10, when the planet's disk is 51% illuminated. On which day before or after will Venus look exactly half lit in your telescope? This appearance is called dichotomy.

Try to observe the planet telescopically before the sky darkens, when its disk won't dazzle your eye. At nightfall on the evening of Jan. 3, we'll be treated to a lovely celestial tableau with a slender crescent moon sitting 3 degrees to the left of Venus. On Jan. 18, Venus passes just over 2-degrees to the upper right of Saturn. Venus appears over 5.5 magnitudes brighter. Or put another way, Saturn appears only 1/174 as bright as its dazzling companion.

Earth

Earth is at perihelion, nearest to the sun in space on Jan. 4, at 8:28 a.m. EST, when we're 91,405,993 miles (147,103, 686 km) from the sun.

Mars

As the year opens, Mars rises well north of east about 75 minutes after sunset. On Jan. 1, Mars was only 59.7 million miles (96.1 million km) from Earth, closer than it will be again until May 2031. Peaking at magnitude -1.4 this year, Mars will outshine all stars and other planets currently visible except Sirius, Jupiter and Venus. It remains above the horizon all night from Jan. 15 to 21, with opposition to the sun occurring on the 16th.

On opposition night the season is early spring in Mars' northern hemisphere. The north polar cap, tipped 12 degrees toward us, will therefore shrink noticeably in telescopes during the coming weeks. On the night of Jan. 13, the full moon will pass directly in front of Mars (called an occultation). Mars will disappear behind the moon's left limb and reappear about an hour later from behind the moon's right limb. You'll need binoculars or a telescope to view this because of the moon's great brilliance relative to Mars.

Here are some very approximate viewing times: From the Pacific Time Zone, Mars will vanish at 5:50 p.m. and emerge at 6:45 p.m. For the Mountain Time Zone, 6:55 p.m. and 7:55 p.m. In the Central Time Zone, 8:00 p.m. and 9:05 p.m., and from the Eastern Time Zone, 9:15 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

Jupiter

Jupiter was at opposition to the sun in early December, so in January 2025 the mighty gas giant planet is still very bright, very large in telescopes and extremely well-placed in the evening sky. Jupiter fades a little in January (from magnitude -2.7 to -2.5), but it still far outshines any star, even the dazzling stars of winter. It's unusually high above the horizon from dusk until midnight or later for observers at northern latitudes. On the evening of Jan. 10, as was the case on Dec. 14, Jupiter again appears nearly equidistant from the moon (to its north) and Aldebaran (to its south).

Saturn

Appearing as its old dependable self, Saturn glimmers into view in the southwestern sky in Aquarius as dusk fades. But don't be fooled. This is the last month for about a year and a half to get anything like the traditional view of Saturn's rings in a telescope.

The rings are closing, and on March 23 they will turn edgewise to the Earth for the first time since 2009. At nightfall on Jan. 4, check out the wide crescent moon and located about 3-degrees to its upper left will be Saturn. As noted above in the Venus summary, Saturn will be in conjunction about 2degrees from that dazzling world on Jan. 18.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, the Farmers' Almanac and other publications.

Editor's Note: If you get a great photo of any of the planets and would like to share it with Space.com's readers, send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.