Saturn, Mars and Jupiter align over New York City in gorgeous night-sky photos

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An unusually serene view of "the city that never sleeps"

Saturn, Mars and Jupiter align over the New York City skyline on March 26, 2020. (Image credit: Alexander Krivenyshev/WorldTimeZone.com)

Three bright planets line up across the predawn sky above the New York City skyline in these gorgeous views by local photographer Alexander Krivenyshev.

Krivenyshev captured these photos of Saturn, Mars and Jupiter as they rose over Manhattan early Thursday morning (March 26), as seen from the town of West New York, New Jersey — just across the Hudson River from New York City's Central Park.

"No one less than 20 years old has ever seen these 3 planets appear so close to one another," Krivenyshev told Space.com in an email. When these photos were taken, Saturn was about 3.5 degrees to the left of Mars, and Jupiter was about 3.4 degrees to the right of the Red Planet. (For reference, your fist held at arm's length measures about 10 degrees across.)

Related: See the 2020 Super Worm Moon over NYC and Washington, D.C. in these awesome photos

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Saturn, Mars and Jupiter align over the New York City skyline on March 26, 2020.
Saturn, Mars and Jupiter align over the New York City skyline on March 26, 2020.(Image credit: Alexander Krivenyshev/WorldTimeZone.com)

Though it is often referred to as "the city that never sleeps," New York City has been unusually still ever since Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered all non-essential workers to stay at home to help fight the spread of the novel coronavirus.

While the city that never sleeps is taking a metaphorical nap for the time being, there's still plenty going on in the night sky to offer quarantined stargazers something to look at. 

Mars will pass close to Saturn in the southeastern predawn sky on Tuesday, March 31. The pair will be visible until almost sunrise after rising at about 4:15 a.m. in your local time zone. (Image credit: Starry Night)

For example, Saturn and Mars will be in conjunction on Tuesday (March 31), which means the planets will share the same celestial longitude and make a close approach. The two will be less than one degree apart in the predawn sky, according to In-Tke-Sky.org. Look for the pair above the southeast horizon before sunrise.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

 

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Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.